It's April 3, 2021. In the midst of this long, miserable pandemic ... we've got a pretty wild basketball game taking place. Yes, March Madness is back this year, and this Final Four contest between Gonzaga and UCLA appears to be headed for a second overtime unless there's a miracle.
Before we see any potential miracle, we need to recall the strange shape of this matchup. UCLA, the historic basketball superpower, is a distinct underdog. Gonzaga, the tiny private school, is one of the most dominant teams of all time. How the heck did we get here?
Oh, and could this shot actually go in. Gonzaga's Jalen Suggs needs to pull up from like halfcourt if he wants to break a tie. He's one of the best players in the country, and one of the best in Gonzaga recruiting history, so he's as up for the task as anyone ... but HAS anyone made a game-winner from this deep?
To answer all of the above, we need to rewind.
Before we see any potential miracle, we need to recall the strange shape of this matchup. UCLA, the historic basketball superpower, is a distinct underdog. Gonzaga, the tiny private school, is one of the most dominant teams of all time. How the heck did we get here?
Oh, and could this shot actually go in. Gonzaga's Jalen Suggs needs to pull up from like halfcourt if he wants to break a tie. He's one of the best players in the country, and one of the best in Gonzaga recruiting history, so he's as up for the task as anyone ... but HAS anyone made a game-winner from this deep?
To answer all of the above, we need to rewind.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Today is April 3rd, 2021.
00:03Here in Indianapolis, we've got some bonus basketball.
00:07This men's Final Four game between Gonzaga and UCLA
00:10has already required one overtime.
00:12And since the Bruins just tied the score
00:14and left the Zags very little time to get a shot off,
00:17we are probably headed for another.
00:19Before we hear the buzzer,
00:20let's take stock of what's going on here.
00:23How a legacy basketball Goliath became an underdog
00:27and how a tiny private school
00:28became an undefeated powerhouse.
00:31Let's rewind.
00:35This video is presented by Stella Artois,
00:38a taste worth more.
00:40This 11 seed might seem pretty weird,
00:43especially if you only know UCLA as a historic entity,
00:47alma mater of innumerable legends,
00:50winningest men's program ever.
00:52If you only know recent events,
00:54it's the Final Four birth that's the surprising part.
00:57UCLA has won 11 basketball championships, yes,
01:01but none since 1995.
01:04Back in the early 2000s, the Ben Howland era,
01:07the Bruins brought in some elite talent
01:09and at least approached a return to glory,
01:11but that little run of contention crapped out.
01:14Howland's successor, Steve Alford, fared much worse.
01:19UCLA's recruitment of the Ball Brothers drew headlines,
01:22but ultimately more for surprises and scandals
01:25than for the actual basketball.
01:27Lamello Ball bailed.
01:29LiAngelo Ball had his whole thing.
01:32Only Lonzo Ball actually appeared in games for the Bruins
01:35and his squad lost in the Sweet 16 in 2017.
01:39In 2019, Alford got fired mid-season
01:43and UCLA missed the NCAA tournament,
01:45something that has happened way too often this century.
01:49In came Mick Cronin.
01:51Cronin had scarcely worked
01:53outside the sovereign republic of Ohio Tucky.
01:56He started his head coaching career at Murray State,
01:59then took over his alma mater, Cincinnati,
02:01for over a decade.
02:02But the chance to lead this storied program
02:05back to where it's supposed to be
02:07enticed Cronin to cross the country.
02:09Last season, the Bruins shook off a rough start
02:12to finish second in the Pac-12.
02:14Cronin won Conference Coach of the Year
02:16and UCLA looked well-placed
02:18to make a respectable return to the, uh, buns.
02:22This year, then, would be the official beginning
02:24of the Mick Cronin era.
02:26His first season leading his own core of recruits,
02:29including five-star point guard,
02:30Dacian Nick, uh, Buns.
02:33Well, at least UCLA could still depend
02:36on their go-to upperclassman,
02:38big senior guard, Chris Smith, who, uh, buns.
02:43Yeah.
02:44The Bruins' successful run this year
02:45has come from an unexpected source.
02:48Johnny Juzang spent most of last year
02:51sitting on the Kentucky Wildcats bench
02:53behind some dudes playing in the NBA right now.
02:56After that season's abrupt end,
02:58Juzang announced, remotely, of course,
03:00his intention to transfer to the school in his hometown,
03:03the place he might have originally picked
03:05if they hadn't been such a mess back in 2019.
03:08Juzang found his way to instant eligibility
03:11and became the leader UCLA needed
03:14after their star senior went down.
03:16Flanked by two talented sophomores,
03:18fellow Californian Jaime Jaquez
03:20and mini-guard Tiger Campbell,
03:22Juzang has been a revelation in blue and gold.
03:25After scarcely seeing the floor at Kentucky,
03:28Juzang's had several diamond-scoring performances
03:31this season, including a few in this tournament.
03:34To even participate in the bracket proper,
03:36UCLA had to win an 11-seed versus 11-seed play-in
03:40versus Michigan State.
03:42Strange matchup, strange times,
03:44and it took an overtime to decide.
03:46Juzang had some big buckets in OT,
03:49combining for 50 points overall with Jaquez
03:51to punch UCLA's ticket.
03:54Juzang has saved his best for the best.
03:5727 points in a huge first-round upset of BYU,
04:0128 despite an injured ankle against Michigan
04:03in the Elite Eight.
04:05Tonight, he's surpassed both those totals.
04:07Just when the Bruins needed him,
04:09Juzang has played every single minute
04:11and turned in a career performance.
04:14Juzang could have, perhaps should have,
04:17earned the chance to win this game
04:18at the free-throw line toward the end of regulation.
04:21But he had no such luck because of this
04:23borderline charging call, you be the judge.
04:27Either way, he made up for that here in OT just now
04:30by following his own last-second miss
04:32off a tough contested floater to tie the score
04:35and reach a game-high 29 points.
04:38I fully expect Juzang to keep playing uninterrupted
04:42in the second OT and perhaps keep
04:44the bizarro Cinderella run alive.
04:47You know, assuming there is a second OT.
04:50Safe assumption, but hey, while we're here,
04:52let's at least entertain the possibility of a miracle.
04:56Jalen Suggs has the ball.
04:58Him even being on this team
05:00represents a long-brewing miracle.
05:03Even if you know your college hoops,
05:05you may have wondered at one point or another,
05:07hey, how the hell did Gonzaga get good?
05:10It's a private Jesuit liberal arts school
05:13in Spokane, Washington, with an undergraduate
05:16of around 5,000, one of the smallest colleges ever
05:19to hold a number one ranking.
05:21So how is a fair question?
05:24The answer is not quickly.
05:27For the first like 90 years of its existence,
05:30Gonzaga men's basketball did not make
05:32a single NIT or NCAA tournament.
05:36If basketball fans in our lifetimes had heard of Gonzaga,
05:39and I'll include myself here,
05:41it was because of John Stockton.
05:43The future NBA great happened to be the Spokane-born son
05:47of a multi-generation Gonzaga legacy.
05:50So he played his college ball
05:51for the Bulldogs in the early 80s.
05:53The Zags still didn't win much,
05:55but the wheels were in motion.
05:57Around the Stockton era, the Zags became members
06:00of what is now known as the West Coast Conference.
06:03Gonzaga's program leader at the time was Dan Fitzgerald,
06:06who often served the dual role
06:07of athletic director and coach.
06:10Fitzgerald led Gonzaga
06:11to their first regular season WCC championship in 1994.
06:16They didn't make it out of their conference tournament,
06:18but they got a run in the NIT as a consolation prize
06:21and made some headlines by upsetting Stanford.
06:24The following year, Gonzaga finally won the WCC tournament
06:28to earn their first ever trip to March Madness.
06:31And that was that.
06:32They got smushed by Maryland in the first round.
06:35Soon thereafter, Fitzgerald stepped back from coaching
06:38and appointed his assistant, Dan Monson, as head coach.
06:41Under Monson, the Zags embarked on their first true run.
06:461999, the year the rest of the country went,
06:49oh, whoa, is that random college John Stockton went to
06:52that kind of sounds like someone's sneezing?
06:54Are they good now?
06:56Led by future NBA player Richie Fromm, Gonzaga went deep.
07:00First ever tournament win, first ever Sweet 16,
07:03thanks to a stunningly decisive upset of Stanford,
07:06first ever Elite Eight after taking down Florida.
07:09Only the eventual champion UConn Huskies
07:12could shatter Cinderella's glass slipper.
07:14The Gonzaga Bulldogs had arrived
07:17and whiff out the window went their head coach.
07:20Yeah, right after that tournament run,
07:23Monson signed one of those
07:24he's ours everyone, go away contracts with Gonzaga.
07:28And before he coached a single game on that contract,
07:31Monson bailed for an offer he could not refuse.
07:34Kind of ironic that it was Minnesota,
07:36the Zags first victim in that deep tournament run.
07:39In any event, this super hot team on the rise
07:42fell into the hands of longtime assistant Mark Few,
07:45who, well, that's still him on the sideline,
07:48so I think we've gotten to the really good part.
07:50Indeed, Few rode the momentum from 1999
07:54about as well as possible.
07:56Under Few, the Zags built on their motion offense.
08:00They kept pushing pace and space
08:02toward one of college basketball's
08:04more NBA adjacent systems.
08:06Under Few, the Zags brought in
08:08their best NBA prospect since Stockton,
08:10Washington transfer Dan Dickow,
08:13and gradually established themselves
08:14alongside much bigger schools
08:16as a genuine pipeline to the league.
08:19With better recruits came more victories.
08:22The Bulldogs smashed regular season win totals
08:25over and over and made it into
08:27the NCAA tournament every year.
08:30In the last decade, Gonzaga finally recreated
08:33the magic of 99.
08:35Another Elite Eight run in 2015,
08:37they beat UCLA to get there,
08:39and then a national final appearance in 2017.
08:42There's no secret here.
08:44This is just incremental, straightforward progress
08:47under 20 years of great recruiting and coaching,
08:51a genuine powerhouse built from grassroots.
08:54And make no mistake, Gonzaga has been a powerhouse.
08:58They started to see a number one
09:00next to their name in 2013,
09:02and that has been a reasonable objective ever since.
09:05The only thing Few's Bulldogs haven't done is win it all,
09:09but man oh man has this year seemed like the year.
09:12That begins with Jalen Suggs,
09:14the guy about to shoot, I think, right now.
09:17He represents another leveling up for Gonzaga.
09:20As a high schooler in Minnesota,
09:22Suggs established himself among the best recruits
09:25in the country, and not just in basketball.
09:27He's seriously considered and offered
09:29to play football at Ohio State.
09:31Yes, Jalen is related
09:32to legendary linebacker Terrell Suggs.
09:35He's also related to former NBA All-Star Eddie Jones
09:38and current NBA rookie Tyrese Halliburton.
09:40This family is very good at sports.
09:42Anyway, Suggs chose basketball,
09:44wherein every major scouting entity
09:46ranked him as a five-star recruit.
09:49And that mega stud prospect, not a local,
09:52not a dark horse or a late bloomer or a transfer,
09:56but a five-star recruit with his sights set
09:58on a near-term future as an NBA lottery pick,
10:01chose to spend a year at Gonzaga.
10:03And what a year it's been.
10:05The Zags are perfect.
10:07Not just perfect, they've won all their games
10:09except one, regular season and post-season,
10:12by a double-digit margin.
10:14While UCLA slugged out an Elite Eight upset to get here,
10:18Gonzaga absolutely smushed the Mobley brothers
10:21and their six-seed USC Trojans.
10:23Oh, and don't worry.
10:25While Suggs is surely headed to the draft,
10:27Gonzaga is feeling confident right now
10:29about getting a commitment from an even bigger recruit,
10:32like Biggest in the Nation, for next year.
10:35In the meantime, uh-oh, that's not a double-digit lead.
10:41UCLA has made the Zags look mortal, finally.
10:45When the Bruins took a lead early in the second half,
10:48it represented Gonzaga's first post-halftime deficit
10:51since early December.
10:53It's been a close game ever since.
10:55Elite Zags shooter Corey Kispert
10:57hasn't been able to get it going from outside.
11:00Guards Joel Ayai and Andrew Nembhard
11:03have been real spark plugs on offense,
11:05but unable to contain Juzang and Jaquez
11:07one-on-one at the other end.
11:09Sophomore big man slash mustache host Drew Timmy's
11:13been the best Zag going in this one.
11:15He's been cooking in the post all over time,
11:18and before that, he combined with Suggs
11:20for the clutch play of regulation.
11:23Right at the two-minute mark,
11:24UCLA had a clear chance to retake the lead
11:27on what appeared to be a clean dunk for Cody Riley,
11:30until Suggs swooped in to stuff the much taller player,
11:33igniting a fast break that ended in this big Timmy slam.
11:37After that point, neither team could pull ahead for good,
11:40and, well, here we are again,
11:43almost certainly headed for another overtime,
11:46because Suggs doesn't have time to do anything here
11:49except pull up from, like, half court.
11:51We're talking 35 feet at a minimum.
11:53So, just out of curiosity,
11:55has the men's tournament ever seen
11:57a miracle of this caliber?
12:00You know, we got inches away from a resounding yes
12:0311 years ago, when Gordon Hayward's
12:05game-winning half court attempt in the final
12:08didn't quite go down,
12:10perhaps the most notoriously agonizing close call in history.
12:14Stathead tells me there are only two
12:17historic buzzer-beating makes of comparable magnitude
12:20to a potential miracle basket here.
12:23Maybe you remember this one from 2016.
12:26Northern Iowa's Paul Jespersen connected
12:28from beyond half court to break a tie and beat Texas.
12:31Listen to that sound of the doink off the glass.
12:34And for the win!
12:35But that was just the first round.
12:37The other is from 1981.
12:39Arkansas' U.S. Reid had to actually navigate traffic a bit
12:43before he stuck this half quarter,
12:45and that wasn't to break a tie.
12:46It actually turned a one-point deficit
12:48into a win over Louisville.
12:49But that was just the second round.
12:52So while Suggs looks like he could get
12:54like a step closer than those guys before he must heave,
12:57the feat he's attempting right now,
12:59winning a game from Hail Mary distance
13:01this late in the tournament, is unprecedented.
13:05We are more than likely headed to a second overtime
13:08of the upstart UCLA Bruins, that's weird to say,
13:11giving the dominant Gonzaga Bulldogs,
13:14also kind of weird to say,
13:15their first real test in a season of dominance.
13:18Let's see what happens.
13:20Welcome to a moment in history.
13:22Suggs to do something!
13:23Suggs for the win!
13:25Oh yes!
13:27Oh yes!
13:28Unbelievable!
13:30Unbelievable!
13:32The perfect season remains on go!