The Lunatic curse managed to eventually end the run for the SEC champion. Well – lets be fair, the Lunatic enjoys his magical powers – but they are imaginary. The players can’t really know that I have picked them and perform poorly. This game had a lot in it.

UCLA had an 11 point lead at halftime, but Alabama quickly erased that by scoring the first 11 points of the second half. UCLA would go on a run to bring the lead back out to 7 – but Alabama would make a run to tie the game. And the Crimson Tide found themselves with a 1 point lead and the ball with 2 minutes to play.

Then, they were ruined by replay. Alabama along the sideline was dribbling the ball and it hit the foot of the UCLA player and went through the legs of the Alabama player. It was originally called Alabama ball – but it was overturned because the referees saw the ball slightly touch the Alabama player’s shorts before going out of bounds. And to be very clear, the replay showed the ball brushed the shorts – it did not actually hit the actual leg of the player.

But that was enough. The announcers mentioned that there was no way a referee could have seen that in real-time. And they are right…. We could argue whether or not the shorts should be considered part of the player – I assume the rules say that is the case. But why wasn’t it a kicked ball. I am not saying that it was a really bad call to overturn it – just saying I have questions…..

Then after a defensive stop, Alabama got the ball down to Juwan Gary under the basket – but his shot was blocked by Cody Riley. To be fair, I think that Riley also blocked half of Gary’s arm which would have ended up out-of-bounds if it wasn’t attached to his body. In my mind, that was clearly a missed call.

Then again, it probably wouldn’t have mattered – Alabama would have missed the free throws. Free throws killed the Crimson Tide in this game. They went 11 for 23 from the line in regulation. Just hitting a couple of those would have completely changed how this game played. Although maybe not – if UCLA had to foul Alabama to extend the game, it is very unclear if the Tide would have hit the free throws…..

UCLA got fouled on their next possession (on a play that drew less contact than Gary’s blocked layup). Jaime Jaquez Jr hit one of the two free-throw to tie the game. Then, Alabama’s Herbert Jones hit a free-throw to take the lead back. And then UCLA with just 14 seconds in the game got it to Cody Riley who took it strong to the basket to give the Bruins the lead – setting the stage for a wild 14 seconds.

Herbert Jones got fouled and went to the free throw line. But the 73.8% free throw shooter missed both free throws so they had to foul. David Singleton hit both of the free throws to give the Bruins the 3 point lead with 4 seconds to play. And the announcers mention – this is big because Cronin tends to foul when up by 3.

People know my feelings about fouling when up 3 – I watched my Boilers lose thanks to that strategy in 2019. And it almost cost UCLA as well. Jahvon Quinerly brought the ball up the court, and the defense started converge on him to try to foul him. Instead, Quinerly passed the ball to Alex Reese – who was pretty open since the defender left him to foul Quinerly. And Reese calmly drilled the three-pointer from extremely deep to tie the game. Who knows – if they play straight up man, maybe Quinerly ends up making a desparation three-pointer instead. But in an attempt to try to foul, they stopped playing actual defense – and that gave Alabama a much better chance to tie the game.

Then again, it didn’t matter. The overtime was all UCLA. The Bruins outscored the Tide 23-13 in the overtime period, and a lot of the Tide’s points were just late drives as UCLA simply didn’t want to foul. I would say the pivotal moment came with 1:38 – when UCLA was up four points and Jaime Jaquez Jr hit a three-pointer before the shot clock went off to extend the lead to 7. The next two times down the court, Alabama stopped driving to the basket where they were scoring all their points and settled for toughly guarded three-point shots (which both missed). And by that point it was too late. Part of the reason is because unlike Alabama, UCLA was making their free throws. In the last 50 seconds of the game, UCLA made 11 of 12 free throws making it impossible for Alabama to cut into the lead.

And so the Bruins became the second Pac 12 team, and the second double-digit seed to make it to the Elite 8. They also became the second team since VCU did it to go from the First Four to the Elite 8. That VCU team made the Final Four – just saying……..