UCLA Women's Basketball: Cori Close Unpacks Star's Late-Game Gaffe Vs Utah

It wasn't pretty.

Your No. 2-ranked UCLA Bruins women's basketball program dropped just its second game of the 2023-24 season with a 94-81 overtime defeat against the No. 16-ranked Utah Utes on Sunday. 

Bruins head coach Cori Close afterwards reflected on graduate student star guard Charisma Osborne's costly defensive late-game gaffe, where she guarded the Utes inbounder during a sequence that yielded a game-tying layup that sent the contest into a bonus period, writes Gavin Carlson of The Daily Bruin.

“Charisma was up on the ball and the one thing you can’t let happen is it go down the baseline side – the sideline,” Close said. “We did let the ball go down the sideline. When we’re up on the ball, we got to always be making the ball go the other direction, especially with only four seconds. … Charisma was the first one to take ownership and say (there were) too many mental errors.”

Osborne was recently shortlisted for the 2024 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award (a year-end honor reserved for the nation's best shooting guard) and was named the Student-Athlete of the Week for her 22-point performance in the loss, so clearly her legacy won't take much of a hit for one mental error.