From wear and tear to Princeton's game plan to Arizona's approach, the reasons the Wildcats lost to the Tigers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Bruce Pascoe SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Relaxing in his hotel room before UCLA played Thursday's final NCAA Tournament game at the Golden 1 Center, Bruins guard David Singleton briefly watched Arizona race ahead of Princeton and figured that was enough.
That’s why even the replay of it looked shocking to UCLA guard Tyger Campbell — who apparently had no no alarm clock, human or otherwise — interrupting his pregame nap. Sure enough, during the Wildcats’ run to the Pac-12 Tournament title, Kriisa separated his shoulder in the quarterfinals against Stanford; Oumar Ballo broke his left hand in the semifinals against USC a day later; and, against UCLA in the finals a day after that, Krissa suffered a cut on his right hand.
“In my mind, I was confident we were gonna win this game and we had more games to go,” Ballo said. “So I was not trying to take some kind of risk to put my whole competition in jeopardy. I was trying to protect myself a little bit.” The Tigers did it all without fouling much. Arizona took its second-fewest trips to the free-throw line of the season, hitting just 4 of 7, unable to take advantage of the fact that Princeton didn’t take a single free throw in the first half and didn’t make any until the final 21 seconds.
“I thought we did a good job having the conviction to go inside. We didn't have enough shots get rewarded with whistles. That's how it goes." “Credit to Princeton,” Ramey said. “They stuck with a game plan. They made a couple more shots, made a couple more plays. This is tough right now just to think about it. But I try to stay level-headed and just understand there's a bigger picture. God has a plan, and part of the plan was today. I just got to think about it like that.”
The cumulative effect wore on the Wildcats. Lloyd said the Wildcats didn’t put the “hammer” down when they were up by double digits, and Tubelis indicated turnovers were part of the reason. After Kriisa’s miss, Tubelis was forced to foul Princeton’s Tosan Evbuomwan, who hit the front end of a one-and-one to give Princeton an insurmountable four-point lead with three seconds left.
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