but so should the Bruins (2-0).

After their Final Four run, they lost a couple of key pieces to the rabidly churning transfer portal, but they’ve got back the core of last season’s Final Four team that was ranked No. 1 in the country for 14 consecutive weeks — Betts, Jaquez, Rice, Timea Gardiner and Angela Dugalic.

They might boast the best starting five in all the land in Betts, Jaquez, Rice, and Charliesse Leger-Walker and Gianna Kneeperns, the latter graduate seniors, one of whom debuted after losing more than a year to injury and the other of whom transferred in.

They also added Sienna Betts, Lauren’s little sister and the second-ranked recruit in the country, though she is out for the time being with a lower leg injury.

It’s small wonder that oddsmakers would have the Huskies picked to repeat ahead of the Gamecocks, and after them, the Bruins — who will be battled-tested by tournament time. There have several ranked teams scheduled before they get to work defending their Big Ten Tournament championship.

In all, UCLA has seven seniors in its rotation, a hungry group with tons of WNBA upside. But no remaining college eligibility after this last go-around.

So when the Bruins say there’s no time like the present, they mean no time.

It’s go time. The fourth quarter. The proverbial iron, hot — especially because last year’s experience is still so fresh, its lessons percolating so near the surface.

“We’re not trying to dwell on that because it is a new season, new team, new opportunities,” Jaquez said. “Just understanding, though, the people that were there, the coaches that were there, just knowing how we felt those things that we do need to improve on.

“And applying that in practice and the games — it’s all the little detail things, setting and using screens and definitely being really good on defense.”

Also, Close said, by spreading the floor, taking more 3-point shots from farther away, forcing the opponent’s defenders to have to cover more ground. That means Kneeperns, who last season for Utah averaged 19.3 points per game and shot 44.8% from 3-point range, and who was 4 for 8 from deep on Thursday — will have a bright green light.

And the Bruins have the obligation of figuring out how to feed her. And to incorporate Leger-Walker, a savvy floor general. And the talented younger Betts.

It’s an impressive infusion of talent that raises the Bruins’ ceiling but will take some figuring out. Ask the USC women’s team, which often struggled to make its puzzle pieces resemble a super team last season.

For her part, Close plans to coach her hard-working, selfless, not-quite-edgy-enough group hard, she said: “I’m going to come really hard at them, because I know what their goals are.”

None of this is automatic.

Least of all winning a national title.

“I think there’s a different kind of hard when you’re the hunted every night,” Close said. “There’s a different kind of pressure you need to understand that is a privilege — and it’s easy to say the phrases and the coach-speak, but I think our team understands it here (pointing to her heart) a little more. What does this really take? And what’s the grind really like? It feels different this year.”

It doesn’t feel inevitable, perhaps. But it feels possible.

It feels more possible than ever before for these gutty Bruins, who had, once upon a time, made consecutive AIAW national semifinal appearances in 1978 and 1979 but hadn’t come close to the NCAA mountaintop until last season — the experience that could be what sets them up to be, as Close likes to say, “our best when our best is needed.”

It’s their best shot, and their last shot.