Good news: A crowd of 8,403 showed up at the Charleston Civic Center Saturday, meaning about 3,000 tickets were sold Friday and Saturday. Good game, too, as you’d expect with West Virginia in this WNIT bender — 12 lead changes no lead larger than six points. That lead belonged to WVU with 7:22 left in regulation, and that was when UCLA went to work.

And that brings us to the bad news: There would be no overtime this time and, for the second time in Mike Carey’s 14 seasons, the Mountaineers were the runners-up in the runner-up tournament. Feel free to, ahem, blame Canada.

Canada, a 5-foot-6 freshman from Los Angeles, scored a game-high 31 points to lead the Bruins to a thrilling 62-60 win over West Virginia (23-15) in front of 8,403 fans and a national television audience on the CBS Sports Network.

“It was such a great feeling to know that your team trusts you and that they have my back,” said Canada, who earned the WNIT Most Valuable Player award for her efforts. “It’s such a great feeling and an honor, especially as a freshman. We have four seniors on this team, so for them to pick me up, it shows that they have a lot of trust in me, so I respect that.”

The win capped an improbable six game run from by the Bruins, who entered the tournament with 13-18 mark and finished 19-18. The team finished with nine wins in its final 11 contests.

UCLA earned the title in its first ever appearance in the NIT, while West Virginia earned its second overall runner-up finish in the tournament, after also falling short in the 2005 title game.

“We were starting to play our best basketball late in the Pac-12 season,” UCLA fourth-year coach Cori Close said. “It wasn’t always playing out in wins and losses. We thought we played our best game of the year in a game we lost to Stanford, so we felt like we were getting some momentum.

“I think it was just putting the pieces together as a whole. It just took a long time. It was all those teamwork things where you’re putting all those individual puzzle pieces together to make a really pretty picture. I just think it started to click and started to glue.”

Canada used her quick first step to the rim the entire contest thanks to some help from WVU defenders who were forced to guard the Bruins’ other hot-handed guards.

Canada finished 13 of 15 from the free throw line in the contest.