Last season, the UCLA women's basketball team limped out of the Pac-12 Conference tournament with a losing record, hoping to salvage what it could from the NIT.
Before the Bruins' first NIT game, Coach Cori Close invited a speaker to address the team: Ed Schilling, an assistant coach for the UCLA's men's team, spoke of his time at Memphis, when a talented but struggling team turned an NIT appearance into a springboard for a deep NCAA tournament run the next season.
"They learned how to win," Close said. "I thought our team captured a vision at that point.