Sam Settles It: For UCLA, another heartbreak simply shows the unpredictability of March Madness

Gonzaga guard Julian Strawther drills the game-winner over freshman guard Dylan Andrews in Thursday’s Sweet 16 contest. UCLA men’s basketball led with seconds to go before Strawther’s shot sunk the Bruins. (Jack Stenzel/Daily Bruin)

By Sam Settleman
March 25, 2023 2:20 p.m.
LAS VEGAS — It’s ironic that no one can resist trying to predict the one sporting event that is utterly unpredictable.
March Madness isn’t a seven-game playoff series. It’s not a battle between two teams who know everything there is to know about each other. The best team certainly doesn’t always win.
An 11-minute drought without a field goal? Unpredictable. A starter who played five days ago can’t go? Unpredictable. A deep Gonzaga 3 to bury UCLA in an NCAA Tournament game? Well, maybe not so unpredictable.
But as easy as it is to chalk up UCLA men’s basketball’s Sweet 16 loss to Gonzaga on Thursday as another chapter in a book of three straight years of falling short, you can’t. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. That’s just March.
UCLA may be left thinking about what could’ve been if junior guard Jaylen Clark and freshman forward Adem Bona were healthy, if it doesn’t go ice cold for 11 minutes, if Julian Strawther doesn’t drill a logo 3 with six seconds to play. But the Bruins know better than most: That’s just March.
It was the same feeling a year ago. What happens if UNC’s Caleb Love doesn’t go unconscious in the Sweet 16 and UCLA gets to play a No. 15 seed for a trip to its second straight Final Four?
And who could forget 2021? A UCLA team that made it from the First Four to the Final Four as a No. 11 seed had gone toe to toe for 45 minutes with an unbeaten Gonzaga team.
But happy endings are few and far between in March. Just like Strawther’s shot Thursday, Jalen Suggs’ prayer at the buzzer kept the Bulldogs dancing.
It was Johnny Juzang’s heroics that kept UCLA alive in 2021 and freshman guard Amari Bailey’s on Thursday. Both thought they had their one shining moment, but the jubilation lasted mere seconds.
Unpredictable, and yet so very predictable.
These aren’t the days of John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. No team wins 10 NCAA titles in 12 years. Nine different programs have won a national championship in the last 12 seasons, with another new champion likely to be crowned this year.
But in the same vein, why count UCLA out next year? When the Bruins lost Clark to a season-ending injury on the last day of the regular season, they were certainly down but not out. No Bona against an All-American big man in the biggest game of the season? Down, but not out. Trailing by nine with just over a minute to go? Down, but somehow still not out.
The analysts will tell you UCLA is down. Clark may not return, senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. is all but gone, fifth-year guard David Singleton is moving on, redshirt senior guard Tyger Campbell could do the same, and Bona and Bailey might bid goodbye to Westwood too. And yet, the Bruins aren’t out.
Any of those players outside of Jaquez and Singleton could very well return, the transfer portal is as open as ever, and with coach Mick Cronin at the helm, there’s little reason to expect a colossal drop-off. And, of course, once the tournament rolls around, the madness begins.
That’s March for you.
At this point, it may just sound like a euphemism to grieving UCLA fans of the last three years. But it’s the truth.
That’s what makes March Madness special for some – and heartbreaking for most.
For now, it’s yet another year on the soul-crushing side for UCLA. But when March rolls around in 2024, prepare to expect the unexpected once more.