The awards just keep on coming.
Former UCLA women’s basketball center Lauren Betts won the 2026 Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year award presented by Honda on Monday. The annual honor is part of the Collegiate Women Sports Awards, which recognizes the top female athlete in 12 different NCAA sports.
Betts also won the Honda Sport Award for basketball earlier this year – making her the second Bruin to ever win both honors and the first since Ann Meyers in 1978. As a program, UCLA boasts the most ever Collegiate Women Athlete of the Year selections with seven and is second all-time with 37 total Honda Sport Awards.
The Bruins’ most recent overall winner was former right-hander Rachel Garcia, who played for UCLA softball from 2017 to 2021, earning back-to-back honors in 2019 and 2021 and three Honda Awards for the sport.
Betts was also the first Bruin to win the ESPY for Best College Athlete – Women’s Sports two weeks ago. She was chosen over Pittsburgh volleyball’s Olivia Babcock, Northwestern lacrosse’s Madison Taylor and Oklahoma gymnastics’ Faith Torrez.
[Related: Lauren Betts furthers Bruin legacy with historic ESPY victory]
The reigning Big Ten Player and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year helped lead the Bruins to their first-ever NCAA championship this past season, posting 17.1 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game on a 58.2% field goal clip. She earned AP All-American First Team honors, her second consecutive Lisa Leslie Center of the Year award and was a Naismith Trophy Women’s College Player of the Year finalist for her senior year contributions.
In her last of three seasons in Westwood, Betts guided UCLA to an unblemished conference record across 18 games and just one loss overall.
The 2025-26 campaign was stamped with a 28-point trouncing of South Carolina in the national championship. After delivering 14 points and 11 rebounds in the title match, Betts was awarded the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
Since departing the collegiate scene, the Centennial, Colorado, local was drafted fourth overall in the 2026 WNBA Draft – one of a record-breaking six draft picks from the same school – by the Washington Mystics. Joining her on the Mystics was ninth-overall pick former UCLA forward Angela Dugalic, who is the reigning Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year.
[Related: Pro Bruin Rundown: Former UCLA women’s basketball players make their marks in the 2026 WNBA season]
Through 26 games, now-rookie Betts has posted 6.7 points, 3.6 rebounds and 0.6 blocks per game in 16.4 minutes.
