The mission statements seem pretty clear.

After advancing to the Final Four last season, UCLA’s women’s basketball team wants to win a national championship. After becoming the Naismith College Defensive Player of the Year, Bruins senior center Lauren Betts wants to become the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft.

Instead of fixating solely on the end result, however, UCLA coach Cori Close has stressed to her players the need to focus on the process.

“I want her to focus on her joy,” Close told EssentiallySports about Betts. “I want her to focus on her process. I want her to focus on being with her teammates and enjoying this last year. And then the growth will take care of itself.”

Close spoke with EssentiallySports recently at the John Wooden Award Tip-off Luncheon on a number of topics: the late UCLA coach, how UCLA can build off its Final Four run, Lauren Betts’ dominance, and playing in the Big Ten.

Editor’s note: The following one-on-one interview has been edited and condensed.

What are your favorite Wooden memories?

Close: “You don’t have enough time for all of my favorite memories. But I was just talking to his grandson. There is not a day that goes by, and there isn’t a lesson or a phrase or a memory that is formidable in how I lead, whether it be culture building, how we treat players, or whether it be preparation. Or how I do practice plans, or even how I put my shoes and socks on every day. But knowing Coach Wooden was about becoming a better leader and coach. More importantly, it was about becoming a better person. For that, I’m forever grateful.”

What would Wooden think about the growth of women’s college basketball?

Close: “I think he was already a pioneer. It was very clear that he thought that women’s basketball was the purest form of the game. When he was alive, he was an absolute champion for growing women’s basketball. I think he would be thrilled. I think he would be so excited to see the level of excellence and the way that women have been mastering their craft, and the way that society is really coming alongside it. I think that he would be thrilled.”

What would Wooden think of the transfer/NIL world?

Close: “With the transfer portal, there are really good reasons to transfer. I think it’s an appropriate thing to have a one-time transfer without sitting out. I wish that after the first transfer, in the second one, you would have to sit out a year. I think Coach Wooden would agree with that. He was about character, commitment, and seeing things through. You look at the ‘Pyramid of Success.’ It is about staying with it, the perseverance, the industriousness, the friendships. So you look at the foundation of the ‘Pyramids of Success.’ By transferring, are you diminishing those, or are you building those? I think Coach Wooden would say if you can, he’s not a judgement across all transfers, but if you can, to stick with it and invest in those character pillars and those blocks. That will always serve young people well.”

With your team, what are the lessons learned with last season’s Final Four run and what the next steps are to win a championship?

Close: “I think with every experience you can say that mistakes are just feedback. As we fell short in the Final Four, it’s about understanding what is the feedback we got when we fell short. In that failure, I think there is an incredible opportunity for learning and for taking our craft to the next level. I also think we need to surrender the outcome, whether or not we win the national championship. That is obviously our goal and our quest. But that must remain a byproduct of the process that we commit to over the next several months.

So I think we are really in a unique place. We’ll probably have a better roster than even last year. But we also, more importantly, have a better idea of what it takes to be successful in those levels. So I’m excited to see what they can do.”

What makes this roster better?

Close: “We’ve added some really strategic pieces. We have a pass-first vision kind of point guard to play alongside our other lead guard in Kiki Rice and Charlisse Leger-Walker. Then we got one of the very few 50-40-90 players in the country in Gianna Kneepkens. She shot 40% from 3, 50% from 2, and 90% from the free-throw line. So the spacing that creates around Lauren Betts, who draws a double team and triple team, the entire system and spacing and the ways we’re trying to create advantages is that much more difficult for our opponents.”

Lauren is such a special player. But with getting more attention on the scouting report as you suggested, how does she go about maintaining her play and building off of it?

Close: “I think it’s about focusing on where her feet are. There are all of these projections about her being the No. 1 pick in the Draft. There are all of these different things. But the other night, she texted me and said, ‘Can we talk about how we can frame this right so she can stay in a really good place?’ It’s hard. Everyone thinks this is so amazing. And it is. But there are burdens to bear. So I want to be a great support system for her in that. But with Lauren, I want her to focus on her joy. I want her to focus on her process. I want her to focus on being with her teammates and enjoying this last year. And then the growth will take care of itself.”

What’s it like seeing Lauren and Sienna together?

Close: “I think Sienna is doing better than I thought. She is so much further ahead than Lauren at the same age. Her basketball IQ is tremendous. She’s impressive with her physicality and understanding of the game and she’s a lefty. So she’s very different than Lauren. She’s only 6’5. You wrap your mind around that in the women’s game. But she has a very different game than Lauren does. But Sienna’s impact already has been great. People should look forward to it because they’ll play together some too.”

Oh really? How will you determine that?

Close: “Well, I think it’ll just be how we evolve and how the rotations go. But Sienna is doing a great job.”

That process that you mentioned, what are the priorities and what will it take to reach that?

Close: “I think the priorities for me are always going to go back to character and choices and habits. We’ve sort of come up with our uncommon ‘Ps’ for the year. We’re going to make personal and sacrificial decisions. Then we’re going to prioritize accordingly with our habits and how we go about things. We’re going to play with great purpose with what we do. And we’re going to make sure that we have the right pursuit. The right pursuit for us is really only caring about what’s happening in the room, blocking out outside noise, and blocking out expectations. We’re really focusing on our own definition of success and not what the outside world says.”

You’ve also said things about needing to have ‘an abundance mentality.’ What does that look like?

Close: “That’s what the pursuit comes into. Our pursuit is only about things that are out of our control and that are out of abundance. So I’m going to have a growth mindset today. Growing opportunities never run out. They are available for everybody. A ‘scarcity mentality’ is when I see someone else get more playing time and then I go, ‘Oh wait, that means less for me.’ So we want to stay away from those things. We want to stay away from anything that doesn’t put us in control over.

‘Abundance mentality’ is being an elite teammate. You can always do that. There is an abundance of those opportunities. Growing at your craft every single day. Choosing to make choices and habits that are going to be pervasive. Those never run out. So we want to stay in the habits of an ‘abundance mentality.’”

What were your takeaways with being in the Big Ten?

Close: “I’m so thankful. The Big Ten is setting the stage for women’s basketball in the country both with its investment and its exposure. Obviously, there are some sacrifices. There is some grieving that the Pac-12 doesn’t exist anymore. But if that’s not going to be there, then I want to be a part of the place that is demanding the highest level of excellence. And that is the Big Ten.”

What’s it been like adjusting to the schedule with the opponent and the travel?

Close: “I love the opponents. The coaches have been excellent. Iron sharpens iron. I love the varied styles of play. I think that’s really preparatory for the NCAA tournament. The travel is fine as long as you are well-resourced with how you travel, and we are at UCLA. And if you can plan ahead and adjust your conference, which we have done that as well. I think there are obviously sacrifices. But do you want to be a part of the best or not? Therefore, it’s not a very big sacrifice to make.”

Mark Medina is an NBA insider for EssentiallySports. Follow him on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.