Bruins aim for another historic upset
Big underdogs look to 2006 with hope for ending Zags’ perfect run
Ryan Hollins wanted to share a message for his UCLA Bruins on the eve of their Final Four matchup against Gonzaga.
“Because of what we did and the success that we had, Mark Few is going to try and put those boys in the dirt,” Hollins said. “They better have their hard hats ready, because they’ve inherited a rivalry that they don’t even know they’re stepping into, to be honest.”
Hollins played center on the UCLA team that engineered one of the most remarkable NCAA men’s tournament comebacks in the last generation. In 2006, UCLA frantically and improbably erased a 17-point deficit against Gonzaga in the regional semifinals, a rally that ended Adam Morrison’s storied college career.
In the aftermath of the game, Darren Collison, then a UCLA guard, said he had no words to describe what had happened. That sentiment rings true 15 years later. “I’m still speechless to this day,” Collison said Thursday. “That whole entire game, things weren’t going well for us for up until the last five or so minutes.”
Gonzaga's coach then was Few. Hollins played under him at the Pan American Games in 2015. “He was still very aware, very aware of what had happened in that comeback and that they shouldn’t have let it happen,” Hollins said.
That UCLA team relied on mental toughness and adhering to the principles of then-coach Ben Howland. The second-seeded Bruins planned to trap Morrison and run Derek Raivio off the 3-point line. But they found a team just as resilient in Gonzaga, seeded third.
Morrison started like the All-American he was and wore out Arron Afflalo, UCLA’s primary wing defender. “Adam Morrison was going to the line, talking trash, saying splash,” Hollins said. Morrison and Afflalo got into it at one point. “Arron throws him to the floor, and we always joke, Arron goes full Compton right there.”
The Bruins switched guard Cedric Bozeman onto Morrison.
“I felt like I had been there before,” Bozeman said. “I was a fifth-year senior at the time. I think I had seen everything, to be quite honest. My whole thing wasn’t about Adam Morrison. It was just pretty much about doing my job and using my length.”
UCLA trailed 42-29 at halftime. They were missing the “easiest shots,” Collison said.
Later, people told Hollins that they turned off their television at about that time. The Bruins, though, were just warming up.
“It got to the point where it wasn’t even in Ben Howland’s hands,” Hollins said. “It was about us.”
UCLA made inroads early in the second half and trailed by nine points with about three minutes remaining.
“In the moment, you are never giving up, and you focus on keep fighting to the end and staying together, going through the process that it takes to pull something like that off,” said Jordan Farmar, a starting guard.
Forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute’s putback brought the score to 71-66 with just over two minutes left.
Gonzaga center J.P. Batista’s foul sent Hollins to the free-throw line with 19.7 seconds left and the Bruins down by 3. Hollins, shooting about 60 perceent from the line for the season, converted both of his one-and-one free throws to bring UCLA within a point.
“I was blacked out,” Hollins said. “For some odd reason, normally you stare at the rim. I remember staring at the entire backboard.”
Farmar stole the ball from Batista as Gonzaga tried to get possession over the halfcourt line and quickly delivered a crisp pass to Mbah a Moute for the go-ahead bucket.
Mbah a Moute clinched the win by diving and knocking the ball away as Gonzaga’s Raivio hurriedly tried to answer.
“The only way that a guy 6-foot-8 steals the ball from a guy 6 feet tall without fouling him is to literally run and slide on the floor like he’s a rock band musician coming in onstage,” Hollins said. “He runs full speed and slides and grabs the ball. It’s insane.”
The Bruins had scored the game’s final 11 points. “HEART … BREAK … CITY,” announcer Gus Johnson memorably exclaimed after Mbah a Moute’s dive.
Once the buzzer sounded, Hollins went to Morrison, who had shot 10 for 17 but missed his final four shots.
“Because he was crying, I wanted him to know how amazing he was and to never drop his head because he had a huge future ahead of him,” Hollins said.
UCLA fell to Florida in the championship game. The visit was the first of three consecutive Final Four appearances and a renaissance of the storied program, which has won 11 NCAA championships overall.
Gonzaga extracted some revenge by beating UCLA in the Sweet 16 in 2015.
The schools have never met this deep into the tournament. This Final Four matchup presents a different kind of matchup for the West Coast’s premier men’s basketball programs.
Gonzaga, undefeated and the tournament’s top overall seed, is chasing perfection. The Bulldogs breezed to the Final Four, crushing USC in the Elite Eight. Their closest result was a 16-point win over Oklahoma in the second round.