Bubblegum, bubblegum, in a dish.

Five seconds, four, three, two – shoot.

Miss.

Wolverine guard Syla Swords ran to the perimeter in the bright, magenta shoes every player was wearing as part of Michigan’s Pink Game on Sunday.

But her game-tying attempt from deep flew wide, and the Wolverines would not touch the ball again.

In a showdown between the Big Ten’s top two teams, No. 2 UCLA women’s basketball (23-1, 13-0 Big Ten) hung on to a 69-66 win over No. 8 Michigan (20-4, 11-2) at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by the film of a gum bubble. With the win, the Bruins retain sole possession of first place in the Big Ten and extend their lead over the Wolverines to two games.

Despite entering Sunday with the conference’s best offense, and boasting a 33.9% success rate from deep, the Wolverines finished shooting 5-for-21 from beyond the arc – including 12 consecutive missed shots that spanned the entirety of the second and third quarters, plus nearly half of the fourth quarter.

Ironically, it was then deep shots that allowed Michigan to trim what was once a 13-point deficit with just over a minute left in the third quarter to as little as three points with 16.6 seconds to go – credit to Swords’ and guard Olivia Olson’s back-to-back 3-pointers in the final 30 seconds of regulation.

The duo combined for all five of Michigan’s baskets from deep and Olson’s 20 points pushed her past the 1,000-point mark, just 57 games into her collegiate career.

Meanwhile, the Bruins were powered by senior center Lauren Betts’ ninth double-double off 16 points, a season-high-tying 16 rebounds and five assists. Senior guard Kiki Rice, senior forward Gabriela Jaquez and graduate student forward Gianna Kneepkens got in on the offensive effort, too – racking up 20, 13 and 12 points, respectively, to round out UCLA’s double-digit scorers. 

Michigan took a 17-13 lead into the second quarter thanks to UCLA’s 33% clip from the field and 1-for-6 shooting from beyond the arc – both well below its season averages of 52% and 38.5%, respectively.

But Kneepkens helped turn the tide in the second quarter, making all four of her shots from the field, including two from deep.

With an 8-0 run early in the second frame, the Bruins caught the Wolverines by the toe, and set them running in the wrong direction, retaking the lead for the first time since Jaquez’s game-opening bucket and holding on the rest of the way.

The Bruins had turned the ball over nine times to the Wolverine’s five by the break – including off a Kneepkens travel, a Rice travel and a Rice double dribble –but the point differential off turnovers remained a difference of just one. 

The Bruins seemingly tagged the Wolverines with their ice-cold 3-point shooting after the first quarter, as Michigan cooled to an 0-for-7 performance in the second frame and 0-for-4 effort in the third. 

While the Bruins continued to bounce back from their first-quarter performance like rubber, the Wolverines’ offense remained stuck like glue until the waning minutes of the afternoon.

Had one of the Wolverines’ dozen straight missed 3-pointers gone their way or Swords’ final attempt found the net, Sunday could’ve ended in an upset.

But the bell, or rather buzzer, rang.

Recess was over, the dish of bubblegum faded into imagination and the Bruins had won.