{"id":675360,"date":"2026-03-23T05:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T05:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675360\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T05:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T05:56:20","slug":"march-madness-uclas-sweet-16-ambitions-thwarted-in-loss-to-uconn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675360\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness: UCLA’s Sweet 16 ambitions thwarted in loss to UConn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHILADELPHIA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0On the night reigning NCAA champion Florida was eliminated by Iowa<\/a>, UCLA<\/a> tried to follow the Hawkeyes\u2019 lead against Connecticut, the team that had won back-to-back titles in 2023-24. <\/p>\n

And for the second straight game they were hoping to win without leading scorer Tyler Bilodeau<\/a>, whose sprained knee still hadn\u2019t healed enough for coach Mick Cronin<\/a> to risk putting him on the floor.<\/p>\n

Seventh-seeded UCLA battled, managing to take a brief lead in the second half. But in the end, No. 2 Connecticut\u2019s size and power were too much for the Bruins to overcome in a 73-57 loss<\/a> in the second round of the NCAA tournament Sunday.<\/p>\n

Four players scored in double figures for UCLA. Xavier Booker<\/a> finished with 13 points, Eric Dailey Jr.<\/a> had 12 points and Donovan Dent<\/a> and Skyy Clark<\/a> each finished with 11. But the Bruins couldn\u2019t contain Connecticut forward Alex Karaban, who erupted for 27 points, as the Huskies advanced to the Sweet 16 to play No. 3 Michigan State in Washington, D.C., on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Bruins got off to a good start, building an 18-12 lead before the Huskies caught fire, hitting seven straight shots at one point to seize a 38-33 halftime lead.<\/p>\n

\"Connecticut's <\/p>\n

Connecticut\u2019s Tarris Reed Jr., center, tries to work past (from left) UCLA\u2019s Trent Perry, Donovan Dent and Eric Dailey Jr. during the first half Sunday.<\/p>\n

(Matt Rourke \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

UCLA (24-12) started the second half on a 6-0 run, regaining a 39-38 edge on a corner jumper by Clark.<\/p>\n

Connecticut (31-5) didn\u2019t wait long to retake control, going on a 14-0 run over the next five minutes, with Karaban scoring 10 points over that span.<\/p>\n

UCLA answered with an 8-0 run, with Dailey\u2019s three-point play cutting Connecticut\u2019s lead to 56-52 and reigniting the Bruins\u2019 hope of an upset. Connecticut, however, responded with a decisive 9-0 run, taking a 67-54 lead with 4:24 left.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

UCLA struggled with its shooting most of the night, going 19 for 49 (39%) in comparison to Connecticut\u2019s 23 for 49 (47%). Both teams had the same number of free-throw attempts (21), but the Bruins made just 67% of their shots and the Huskies made 90%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0On the night reigning NCAA champion Florida was eliminated by Iowa, UCLA tried to follow the Hawkeyes\u2019 lead…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":675361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[63534,97693,32072,1582,276,2738,7031,65253,2961,5615,224,5337,5948,471,449,10201,51379,173182,80095,2501],"class_list":["post-675360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alex-karaban","tag-ambition","tag-bruins","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-connecticut","tag-d-c","tag-huskies","tag-la","tag-lead","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-loss","tag-no","tag-point","tag-run","tag-second-half","tag-skyy-clark","tag-sweet","tag-ucla"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116276952313340516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}