UConn beats UCLA to reach the Sweet 16, in a game that lived up to the blueblood hype
The Huskies' 73-57 win was close until the final minutes, and entertaining throughout the first meeting of these powerhouses since 1995. Alex Karaban led the winning effort with 27 points.
Philadelphia was treated to something rare on Sunday night: just the second all-time meeting between Connecticut and UCLA in men’s basketball.
The first, the 1995 NCAA Tournament’s West Regional final, sent the Bruins on to the national title. If history repeats out of this meeting, the Huskies will have their third championship in four seasons.
UConn won a game that was as high-quality as hoped for, 73-57, with fans on hand including the Sixers’ UCLA alum Adem Bona and UConn alum Andre Drummond. The rest of the crowd enjoyed a clash of the game’s bluebloods that lived up to the hype.
The buzz started before tipoff, with a little snark: the crowd booed both Bruins head coach Mick Cronin and Huskies boss Dan Hurley when they were introduced. Both men likely enjoyed it, being as famous for their hot heads as their coaching pedigrees.
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UCLA was without injured leading scorer Tyler Bilodeau (knee strain), but took an early lead and held it well into the first half, paced by Xavier Booker. Connecticut went ahead for the first time with threes on either side of the six-minute mark, and started to impose itself from there. The Huskies took a 38-33 lead into halftime.
The Bruins scored the first six points out of the locker room, frustrating UConn fans’ tradition of standing and clapping until their team’s first points of a half.
UCLA led 44-42 with just under four minutes gone, but then the Huskies started taking over. Star big man Alex Karaban fired in 10 points of a 14-0 run, including a NBA-range three that had Drummond cheering from a seat he borrowed on press row.
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The Bruins didn’t fold, as Eric Dailey Jr. led a rally to within 58-54 with 7:23 left. But that was as close as they got, with UConn scoring the next nine. Famed actor Bill Murray celebrated behind the UConn bench, where his son works on the staff, and Cronin got a technical foul for mockingly applauding the referees.
“When the Huskies get out of the first round, [we] start believing that a run is coming,” Hurley said. “And I just think you saw the team feed off of the level that Alex was playing at. When a two-time national champion has got that look in his eye and is making those type of shots and plays, I think that’s where the group then was able to put the game away.”
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Karaban led all scorers with 27 points on 9-for-16 shooting, including 4-for-8 from three-point range, while Tarris Reed Jr. had another double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds. Booker led UCLA with 13 points.
UConn is now off to another arena it knows well, in Washington for the Sweet 16. The East Regional quartet is as good as it gets: No. 1 Duke against No. 5 St. John’s, which toppled Kansas on a buzzer-beater Sunday afternoon; and the Huskies against No. 3 Michigan State.
Hurley couldn’t help hoping for a fourth meeting with the Red Storm, after two in the regular season and the Big East tournament final.
“It’s pretty brutal on [X], I think, on social [media] between our fan bases,” Hurley quipped. “But I think we’ve got to kind of try to come together on Friday night against our opponents — so that then we could have a bloodbath on Sunday.”