UCLA Hires Cori Close As Women's Hoops Coach

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- UCLA hired Cori Close as its women's basketball coach on Thursday, giving the former Bruins assistant her first head coaching job.

Close was introduced by athletic director Dan Guerrero as the successor to Nikki Caldwell, who resigned to take the LSU job earlier this month.

Close spent the past seven seasons as an assistant at Florida State. The Seminoles advanced to the NCAA tournament in each of her seasons and won at least 20 games in all but one.

"Cori has established herself as one of the top women's basketball associate coaches in the nation and is certainly ready to take the next step," Guerrero said. "She will continue to build upon the foundation that has been established over the last few years."

Close began her collegiate coaching career at UCLA as the restricted earnings coach on the staff of Kathy Olivier in 1994 and '95.

Before moving to Florida State, Close was an assistant from 1995-04 at UC Santa Barbara, where she played college basketball before graduating in 1993.

During Caldwell's three seasons, UCLA went 72-26, reaching the NCAA tournament twice. She was the Pac-10 coach of the year in 2010, when the Bruins reached the second round of the NCAA tournament and finished 25-9.

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