UCLA Star, WNBA Rookie Lauren Betts Wins Honda Sport Award

Former UCLA star center and current Washington Mystics rookie Lauren Betts won the Honda Sport Award for Basketball for the Class of 2026 on Tuesday.

UCLA head coach Cori Close got the chance to tell Betts she had won the award.

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“We’re just really proud of Lauren,” Close, per UCLA Athletics. “To be the second person in UCLA history to receive this award, to join Annie Meyers Drysdale, is so special and a pretty big deal. Lauren is such an amazing young woman and has earned so much, on and off the court.”

Betts is the second UCLA women’s basketball player to win the Honda Sport Award since Ann Meyers in 1978. She is the 37th UCLA student-athlete to win the award in school history.

Now that she has won the award, Betts is a finalist to win Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the Class of 2026 Honda Cup. UCLA has a had a record six female student-athletes win Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year, so Betts would be the seventh in school history to earn that accolade.

The Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year will be announced on CBS Network on July 27.

In addition to winning the Honda Sport Award, Betts was named the 2026 Big Ten Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year and earned her second WBCA First Team All-America selection for her performance in her senior season.

Betts is now part of the Mystics, which drafted her with the No. 4 pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft on April 13. In her first preseason game against the Minnesota Lynx, Betts scored 13 points and recorded five rebounds, one assist, one steal and a block in 23 minutes.