LOS ANGELES — The UCLA men’s basketball team held their emotions in check and stayed together but after a wild scramble in the final seconds, they suffered a heartbreaking 70-69 loss against Utah at Pauley Pavilion Sunday night.
After being fouled twice in six seconds, sophomore guard Dylan Andrews had 13 seconds left to win the game. It took him less than seven seconds to size up his defender with a crossover and calmy drain a go-ahead jump shot. UCLA (14-12, 9-6) led 69-68 with 6.6 seconds to go.
However, after a wild scramble at the rim off a missed layup by Utah senior guard Deivon Smith, senior center Branden Carlson tipped in the game-winning shot, with .2 seconds left. UCLA tried to throw a full-court inbounds pass but it was intercepted by the Utes.
“It feels horrible,” UCLA junior guard Lazar Stefanovic said. “I don’t know how to exactly explain it, it feels horrible… it came down to the last play but you can count 20 plays down the stretch that we didn’t make that, which would have made a difference. We have to learn from it and we have to be better.”
Stefanovic, a junior guard from Belgrade, Serbia, who transferred to UCLA from Utah during the offseason, finished with a season-high 19 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore point guard Dylan Andrews had 15 points. Sophomore forward Adem Bona finished with seven points in 18 minutes after spending the game in foul trouble.
The Bruins, who shot 39.7% from the field on 25 of 63 shooting sought but were not able to earn redemption after their embarrassing 90-44 loss to Utah on Jan. 11. Since that game, UCLA has won eight of their last 10 games but the Utes ended the team’s six-game winning streak on Sunday.
The team’s leading scorer, Sebastian Mack (13.5 points), a 6-foot-2 freshman guard from Chicago, was ejected midway through the first half after being called for a flagrant 2 foul for an apparent elbow to the neck/throat area of Utah’s 7-foot senior center Branden Carlson. Mack…
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