LAS VEGAS—One of boxing’s pound-for-pound greatest fighters in history will square off against Timothy Bradley at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Apr. 12.
But a month before Manny Pacquiao dukes it out in the ring, the building may have already had its best fight of 2014.
The lead changed ten times in a knock-down, drag-out, settle-this-in-the-parking-lot thriller of a Pac-12 tournament final that ended in a 75-71 UCLA triumph over Arizona, earning the Bruins their first conference tournament title since 2008.
“Well, I got it because the group of young men in the locker room has been committed since the first of April,” said coach Steve Alford. “They’ve really bought in.”
UCLA delivered the game’s first major blow, charging out to a 14-3 lead thanks to the athleticism of Norman Powell in the open court. The junior guard scored UCLA’s first five points and scored 11 points before ten minutes had ticked off the game clock.
Arizona closed to a 43-40 halftime deficit thanks to hot 3-point shooting. The Wildcats made five of their first eight attempts from beyond the arc, three coming from the hot hand of guard Gabe York.
The two squads came out of the tunnel for the start of the second half and went punch for punch, no team leading by more than five for the final twenty minutes.
Arizona’s Aaron Gordon turned around in the paint and dropped a crisp floater to give the Wildcats a 68-66 lead with 4:56 to play. UCLA sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson countered with two free throws to even the tally at 68 apiece 57 seconds later.
Then, a cease-fire. For the next 3:14, neither team scored a point. Missed layups, turnovers and a blown front end of a one-and-one for Arizona (30-4, 15-3 Pac-12) characterized a stretch where two focused, exhausted fighters leaned on one another as the final bell neared.
Still, it was the Bruins who hit the mat. With just over two minutes left, redshirt senior forward Travis Wear raced full-tilt with two Wildcats for a loose ball, diving and calling timeout. The UCLA bench erupted; in a period of zero scoring, the Bruins took all the victories they could get.
“Travis, the loose ball he got tonight, that will always go down as one of the greatest plays in Pac-12 history as far as a tournament goes,” Alford said.
Junior guard Jordan Adams would soon make that comment debatable. During a timeout with 54 seconds to play, Alford and his players never doubted going two-for-one. UCLA’s coach smiled with his team as he drew up the Bruins’ “money play.”
Adams moved off a screen and buried a three-point shot to give the Bruins a 71-68 lead, while redshirt senior forward David Wear and Powell sank four straight free throws, a knockout combination. For Adams, “money” erased the sickness of missing a three to tie against the Wildcats on Jan. 9.
“It reminded me back to the day when we played them at Pauley Pavilion,” Adams said. “I missed that shot in and out, and that shot haunted me. I always told myself if I got another chance, I would knock it down. And coach trusted me to shoot it, and that’s when I made it.”
For the first time all season, the Bruins (26-8, 12-6) beat a team few expected them to. They played their third game of outstanding basketball in as many nights, and won Saturday’s tournament title game in a raucous, Arizona-mad arena that could have posed for the McKale Center in Tucson.
UCLA is now the fluid, finely-tuned result of weathering three months of untimely inconsistencies, thanks in large part to Anderson. The sophomore scored a team-high 21 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and dished five assists, earning the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player distinction.
“It means a lot,” Anderson said of the award. “But first and foremost, I couldn’t have done it without winning the championship, and that took a team effort. Me knowing I helped my team out today, it means a lot to me.”
Losses at Utah, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State put a major question mark on the team’s ability to produce in the NCAA Tournament, and the Bruins found themselves on the ropes for much of the Pac-12 season.
On Saturday, UCLA decided ropes were overrated. Freshly-cut nets would do just fine.