If you watch enough UCLA games, you’ll notice a pattern. Coach Cori Close always draws up an early set to get Gabriela Jaquez a shot. Close knows what the rest of the country is starting to figure out: Jaquez is a sparkplug. She’s having the best season of her career and is rocketing up draft boards. But early in her high school career, Jaquez wasn’t sure if she was good enough to play at UCLA – her dream school – and the Bruins coaching staff shared the sentiment.
Back then, one UCLA assistant coach told me, there wasn’t really anything special about Jaquez’ skillset. She wasn’t dazzling with complex dribble moves. She wasn’t known as a knockdown shooter or as a lockdown defender. She wasn’t breaking ankles on the way to the rim.
But she made things happen. She still does.
Because the truth is, there still isn’t one standout, special thing about Jaquez’ game. She’s special because she’s not a specialist. She’s the kind of player that will do anything and everything for her team. Yet, it doesn’t feel right to call Jaquez a glue player. Yes, she holds UCLA together, but the term “glue player” often denotes a lack of talent. And Jaquez is plenty talented.
This season, Jaquez is averaging 14.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal per game, while shooting 55.9% from the field and 43.8% from beyond the arc. Last night, in a 86-63 win over No. 13 Michigan State, Jaquez finished with 13 points on 5-7 shooting, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.
But it’s not just the numbers that impress me.
When I first met Jaquez, I made the mistake of calling her Gabby. She politely answered my question and then followed it by saying. “It’s Gabriela or Gabs, never Gabby.”
She was stern and assertive. I didn’t make that mistake again.
That’s the way Jaquez plays the game. She has an intense confidence that ignites her teammates and puts opponents in their place. Hence why Close often tries to get her going early in games.
Jaquez is also a throwback of sorts. She grew up an hour from LA, dreaming of being a Bruin, and even watching her older brother, Jaime Jaquez play for the UCLA men’s team. When Jaquez wasn’t good enough for UCLA, she simply put her head down and improved. She emerged from the COVID pandemic – which paused organized basketball – as a not a different player, but a better version of the one she had always been.
Jaquez forced UCLA to take notice. She reached her dream and stuck it out for all four years, helping UCLA to a Final Four last season. And once she got to UCLA, Jaquez did the same thing she did in high school. She chipped away, doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and getting better every day.
Not a glue player, not a star, but a little bit of both.
🚨 BONUS CONTENT 🚨
I can’t write about Gabriela Jaquez and not share my favorite story about her. At the end of the 2022-23 season, my husband and I took a trip to Vegas to watch the WCC men’s tournament (sometimes I watch men’s basketball!) and also caught a few PAC-12 (RIP) games. One of them was the men’s PAC-12 championship game between UCLA and Arizona.
During a timeout, a young woman was brought down from the stands to participate in a shooting competition. The ponytail looked familiar. So did the way she moved. Then I saw the young UCLA fan shoot: It was Gabriela Jaquez.
She was there to watch Jaime, and the poor worker who was tasked with choosing a UCLA fan for the completion had no idea who she was. After Jaquez easily won the contest, the worker was flabbergasted. “You’re really good,” he said. “You should play somewhere!”
“I do,” Jaquez replied with a sly smile. “I’m on the UCLA women’s team.”
Moral of the story: Make sure the fan you select for halftime fun isn’t also a Division I basketball player.