LAS VEGAS - The upset train is making an extended stop in Las Vegas at the 2023 Pac-12 Tournament, with the fifth-seeded UCLA Bruins roaring back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to defeat No. 1 Stanford 69-65 Friday night at Michelob ULTRA Arena.

UCLA’s “monumental” win, as Bruins head coach Cori Close called it, sends UCLA to the championship game for the second time in three seasons and the third time since 2016, to face No. 7 seed Washington State.

And for the first time since 2016, the Cardinal will not be in the Pac-12 championship game.

Three of the four top seeds in this tournament are out. Five upsets have taken place, falling one short of the all-time tournament record of six.

The Bruins, who had lost eight straight Pac-12 Tournament games to Stanford, outscored the Cardinal 29-15 in the final quarter, shooting 54 percent from the floor and making 13-of-15 attempts from the free-throw line. Freshman Kiki Rice led all scorers with 22 points, her career-high, giving UCLA its first lead of the game with 2:07 to go. They would hold on the rest of the way.

“I think that when you have a team that cares more about playing for the four letters across their chest and playing with and for each other, you can experience really special things,” Close said. “I think that coaches love to talk about that this time of year. But what I'm really proud of as their leader is that they've really lived it. They have lived it in the tough days as well as not really fun days. So that's a lot of fun to watch.”

It was not an auspicious start for UCLA, which was held to 22 first-half points. Stanford was able to build a 16-point lead in the third quarter, scoring inside and getting good contributions from its bench.

But Close’s adjustments in the second half, including on the defensive end, put UCLA in a position to bottle up Cameron Brink inside, hold Hannah Jump scoreless and stay close enough to make a run at the end.

Emily Bessoir’s coming-out party continued with 14 points, six rebounds, three steals and a strong defensive effort against Brink. Over three games, Bessoir has scored 49 points and grabbed 28 rebounds.

Fifth-year senior Gina Conti came up with a pair of huge fourth-quarter 3-pointers and a key offensive rebound down the stretch to seal the win.

Rice, meanwhile, scored 11 points in the final quarter, including 7-for-8 from the free-throw line.

“I feel like the energy and effort that we played with kind of starting off the second half, I think that's really what allowed us to go on that run,” Rice said. “I think we just got together in the huddle and we just said, okay, like, we're going to give it our all and we're going to go down fighting…I think we knew we really just needed to come together, play hard, and it all ended up working out for us.”

At 25-8, UCLA is headed to the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins are currently projected as a No. 5 seed, but a title game win might be enough to move UCLA to the No. 4 seed line and give them a chance to host a pair of games at Pauley Pavilion.

Stanford (28-5), still likely in line for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, got 19 points and 11 rebounds from Brink and 15 points and 10 rebounds from Haley Jones, the only two Cardinal players in double figures.

They dominated the game in the paint by a 26-8 scoring margin. They won the rebounding battle by one. They outscored UCLA in bench points 21-9 and they committed six fewer turnovers. But the Cardinal head home early, prepared to regroup and rest after a grinding final stretch of the season in which Stanford has spent four of the past five weekends on the road, played on a Monday, followed by a Thursday and had travel issues in the mountains on the final weekend of the regular season.

“I think what our team can benefit most from is some rest. I think that once we get rested, we'll go home, take three days off, at least, and let people just get refreshed,” VanDerveer said. “Then we expect to be in the NCAA Tournament. We expect to play, have an opportunity to play at home, hopefully two games. We have to fix some things, there's no doubt.” 

Close sat in her chair at the postgame press conference, soaked from the water bottle celebration bestowed by her team in the locker room after the game.

And she wanted to make one last point.

“I want to say, make this very, very clear: As thrilled as we are for this game, and this is a monumental win, we didn't come here to beat Stanford in the semi-finals," she said. "We came here to pursue a championship at the highest levels. So I asked them in the locker room, ‘Do you want to celebrate this or do you want to be prepared to go win a championship?”

Close will have her answer on Sunday.