LAS VEGAS — How could this tournament have ended any other way?

Four days of thrills and surprises —and a record seven upsets by seeding — delivered the most appropriate finale on Sunday afternoon at Michelob ULTRA Arena, with the seventh-seeded Washington State Cougars becoming the first women’s sports team in school history to win a Pac-12 title, holding off UCLA 65-61.

It was a spectacular game, a taut matchup of 13 lead changes and five ties in which the stars showed up in a big way.

Charlisse Leger-Walker finished with 23 points on the way to being named the Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Senior post Bella Murekatete added 21 points. They delivered a win to become the lowest-seeded team ever to win this title in 22 years and became the first WSU basketball team — men or women — to win the conference tournament.

Far from home, this Cougars team, a collection of international players who came to Pullman when other players wouldn’t, deeply bonded in the common purpose of elevating a program that has had just three winning seasons since 1996. Washington State is now 23-10, winning the most games in program history.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Cougars head coach Kamie Ethridge. “These players came here, some of them five years ago, because we had a vision. We didn’t have anything to show for anything, but look at us now.”

In their first-ever appearance in the tournament title game, the Cougars answered every UCLA challenge, getting the critical baskets they needed from Leger-Walker (including five 3-pointers), outscoring the Bruins in the paint 18-8 in the final period, and getting key free throws down the stretch.

“We had every option to fade away, but we are built for this,” Ethridge said.

Cutting down the nets was a “surreal experience,” Leger-Walker said.

Murekatete said she wasn’t sure how to do it the right way.

“We’ve earned this moment,” Murekatete said. “Everything that’s happened in the last week, we’ve earned every single thing. Everyone of us has put in the work, so it’s an amazing feeling, knowing the work we’ve put in and just finally showing it and it’s paid off.”

UCLA (25-9) is 1-6 in seven title games but played to the finish. A layup by freshman Kiki Rice rolled off the rim with 13.7 to go, the shot that ultimately sealed the Bruins’ fate. Senior Charisma Osborne, playing in her final Pac-12 game, finished with 19 points. Rice added 13 and redshirt sophomore forward Emily Bessoir ended up with 11.

“The further you get into March, you can’t take plays off and I think there were a few possessions in the beginning and just throughout the game that we didn’t execute properly,” Rice said. “Going forward, you know that every game is going to be great. You have to take away what they do best.”

UCLA coach Cori Close said her team needs to embrace their disappointment and use it moving forward into the NCAA Tournament.

“Every time we’ve hit adversity, they’ve made really courageous choices of how to let that adversity teach them and help make them different,” Close said. “You always have to choose the pain of regret or the pain of discipline. Right now we are going to have to learn from some pain of regret.”

The first half included nine lead changes, and a late rally by Washington State to take a 32-28 lead at the half, with the Cougars making five of their last six shots. The Bruins, meanwhile, struggled offensively to finish the first half, with no field goals in the final 3:41. Washington State held the lead for much of the second half and went up 61-54 on a three-point play by Leger-Walker with 2:18 to go. But the Bruins were able to cut the lead to 63-61 with 23.3 seconds left and it was two more free throws by Leger-Walker and Tara Wallack that nailed down the win and set off a celebration unlike one the Cougars have ever experienced before.

“This is insane,” said Leger-Walker, whose season included two trips from Eastern Washington (40 hours of travel each way) to be with her family due to the death of her grandmother, which caused her to miss four games.

Leger-Walker’s total of 76 points is the highest for a single-tournament by any player.

“My teammates had my back," she said. "I’m so proud to be a Coug.”

Close said she rode down the elevator before the game with Ethridge and her mother Mitzi, who was visiting from Texas for this tournament. Close said she told Ethridge how much respect she has for what Ethridge has done to elevate the Cougars’ program.

“That is a really hard job. I’m so impressed with what’s she’s done and done creatively with really committing to international recruiting and playing a style that really takes advantage of their high IQ players and a real international style of play,” Close said. “It’s a tough place to recruit to and they don’t do it like everyone else. They find their own niche and they execute like crazy and credit to them.”

Ethridge talked Saturday about building a program full of international players, largely because she has struggled to convince U.S. players to come to a small town in Eastern Washington to a program that had not won in a very long time.

The players talked about their bond with one another, representing eight different countries, far from their families. It has brought them together.

“All of us are kind of going through the same thing in terms of, we're so far away from home,” Leger-Walker said. “We can't just pick up the phone and say, ‘I want to come home for a weekend’. So that really forces us to get into our teammates and have each other's backs and kind of lean on each other's shoulders a bit and understand that we're all kind of on this journey together.”

A journey that has now brought them a championship.