Darren Pitzner threw the best junk defense he could dream up at Sienna Betts, who promptly tore it to shreds.
After guiding Legend to its first title game by beating one blue-chip, Riverdale Ridge’s Brihanna Crittendon, the coach’s reward was to game plan for another one of the nation’s best players on less than 48 hours’ notice.
The result was somewhat predictable, as The Denver Post’s Ms. Colorado Basketball racked up a double-double with 21 points and 17 rebounds to claim her and Grandview’s third state championship in four years.
“Sienna is the toughest because she’s the biggest game-changer,” Pitzner said. “You think you’ve got actions and defenses ready for her, but she’s just too much of a force, too much of a presence. And she’s smart because if you’re going to triple-team her, she’ll just kick it out to some of their good shooters, and their shooters were feeling it on that Saturday.
“You run out of answers real quick.”
Pitzner thought he had a good blueprint coming in, especially after Legend nearly knocked off Grandview earlier in the season. The Titans were leading in the fourth quarter of that game on Jan. 18 in Aurora, as the athletic Titans kept Betts from completely taking over with an upside-down triangle-and-two. The scheme called for man-to-man defense on Betts, plus a rim protector.
While Betts eventually settled in and led the Wolves to an OT win that night, finishing with 32 points and 12 rebounds, Pitzner made some adjustments to his upside-down triangle-and-two for the championship. But once the Titans got down early and Grandview slowed the pace of the game in the second half, he had to throw the junk defenses out the window.
And even the combination of the Titans’ Division I bigs — All-Colorado selection Mason Borcherding (Boise State) and Aubrey Cook (San Diego State) — couldn’t slow Betts. Neither could any other Colorado team this season as Betts racked up a state-best 27 double-doubles while averaging 23 points, 16.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 3.4 blocks and 2.3 steals.
“I’ve been going against double-teams so long in club and high school, I’ve adjusted my game and it’s not even a big deal to me anymore,” Betts said. “But probably the craziest thing I’ve experienced is a triple-team or quadruple team, which I don’t even realize in the game, but then I look at photos afterwards and there’s four around me, or a triangle-and-two or a box-and-one. But we prepared for that.”
The UCLA commit, who will join her sister Lauren on the Bruins, says she adopted a more intense mindset this season en route to McDonald’s All-American honors, a second Ms. Colorado Basketball nod and her third straight Gatorade state player of the year award.
A loss to Mullen in the Class 6A Sweet 16 last year underscored that recalibration.
“With committing to UCLA last year and all the (recruiting) stuff, I think I wasn’t as focused as I need to be, and as I was this year and my sophomore year,” Betts said. “That really built my motivation to remind myself how badly I want to win. My mindset going into the playoffs was that I refused to lose again. I refused to be in that situation and feel the way I did last year.”
Betts finished her career with 2,022 total points (11th all-time, according to the CHSAA record book, and 4th among big-school hoopers). And her 1,508 rebounds are the most for any boy or girl in state history.
Her status as Grandview’s assists leader in 2024-25 underscored the 6-foot-4 forward’s impressive court vision.
“She reminds me a lot of Nikola Jokic,” Grandview sophomore guard Ava Chang said. “She sees the entire court, including people cutting behind her, and she makes (hard passes look easy).”
Grandview head coach Josh Ulitzky says the most impressive aspect of Betts’ three championships was how her role and status differed on each of those teams. As a freshman, she was the team’s second-best player in Lauren’s shadow; she took over as a sophomore in a breakout season; and as a senior turned in a campaign that lived up to, and in many ways exceeded, the hype.
Along the way, Ulitzky says Sienna became a more skilled high school player than both Lauren (who largely dominated with her height and length) and another ex-Grandview star in 2021 WNBA Rookie of the Year Michaela Onyenwere (who excelled with incredible athleticism).
“Every time she’s won a title, she’s been with a completely different group,” Ulitzky said. “As a sophomore, I love that group of kids, but we had no business winning the title. And she was literally like, ‘Hop on, I’ll carry you.’”
Now, Betts heads off to UCLA with the hope she can make an impact as a freshman. She plans to play the four spot while Lauren, who has established herself a soon-to-be top WNBA draft pick once her college career is over, returns for a final season as the Bruins’ center. UCLA takes on LSU in the Elite 8 on Sunday.
“I expect the whole ‘Lauren’s sister’ stuff again because she’s made such a name for herself in the college realm,” Sienna Betts said. “But I think I’m more prepared this time, and way more confident in my ability, and it won’t affect me as much as it did when I was 14 or 15. I’m really excited to play with her, have her in the post, play off each other and hopefully make a name for ourselves together.”
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