{"id":575588,"date":"2026-02-01T18:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T18:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/575588\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T18:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T18:40:23","slug":"ucla-bruins-lost-98-97-to-indiana-hoosiers-in-double-overtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/575588\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA Bruins lost 98-97 to Indiana Hoosiers in double overtime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mick Cronin said his players should have known<\/a> what was coming in the final seconds of a game thirsting to end.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to a battle of college basketball blue bloods, the UCLA basketball coach<\/a> had shown his team Indiana\u2019s favorite baseline out-of-bounds play 15 times.<\/p>\n

Five times in practice the day before <\/a>the game. Five times later that night. Five times the morning of the game.<\/p>\n

It apparently never sank in.<\/p>\n

UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin reacts on the bench in the second half against the Indiana Hoosiers at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

As Indiana prepared to inbounds the ball with 1.5 seconds to go in the second overtime Saturday afternoon, Hoosiers forward Trent Sisley executed that very play. He cut toward the basket. He took an inbounds bounce pass that gave him a clear path toward an easy bucket.<\/p>\n

Helpless to do anything else, UCLA\u2019s Donovan Dent reached in and hacked Sisley, sending him to the foul line for the winning free throw.<\/p>\n

Just like that, Indiana had drawn up a breathless 98-97 victory over the Bruins inside a stunned and silenced Pauley Pavilion.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefense was awful all night,\u201d Cronin said, \u201cwe deserved to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defeat that ended UCLA\u2019s three-game winning streak was especially crushing given the confluence of events over the last 12 minutes.<\/p>\n

UCLA Bruins react on the bench as the lost to the Indiana Hoosiers in double overtime at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

After the Bruins (15-7 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) had fought back from 10 points down in the final two minutes of regulation and played Indiana even over the next five minutes, they thought they might get the ball back on a controversial out-of-bounds call with 1.5 seconds left in the second overtime.<\/p>\n

UCLA\u2019s Brandon Williams had contested a missed layup by Sisley that was ruled to have gone off the Bruins out of bounds. Cronin challenged the call and when replays were shown on the video scoreboard, fans cheered as if the ball had gone off Sisley.<\/p>\n

But the officials confirmed their initial ruling, giving the ball to the Hoosiers (15-7, 6-5). Having rewatched the play after the game, Cronin disagreed with the call.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOf course, my staff told me it was our ball and I just watched it and it sure looked like it was off Indiana\u2019s elbow \u2013 I just watched it,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cNow, I\u2019m watching it on a small iPad, but I watched it one time. I don\u2019t know, that\u2019s what I saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cronin also didn\u2019t like what he saw from a defense that was incapable of stopping Indiana forward Nick Dorn (26 points), guard Lamar Wilkerson (24) or reserve guard Reed Bailey (24).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t listen to our scouting report for the game, I can tell you that,\u201d Cronin said of his players. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why you lose. I mean, everybody thinks you win and lose in this game because of players and there\u2019s only a few teams that got way better players than everybody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rest of these games are won by execution. Trust me, I\u2019ve won over 500 of them, I know. And I\u2019ve never had superior talent. Execution wins games, and it\u2019s defensive execution, block-out execution. Obviously, baseline-out-of-bounds at the end of game execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCLA Bruins forward Tyler Bilodeau (34) defends Indiana Hoosiers forward Tucker DeVries (12) in the second half at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial. Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

It looked like the Bruins might get a huge bailout when Trent Perry nailed a 3-pointer with two seconds left in regulation, completing a comeback from 10 points down with less than two minutes to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust wanted to win,\u201d said Perry, who led his team with 25 points. \u201cEverybody had that same energy that we\u2019re not going to lose this ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, they did, largely because of an inability to defend and too many missed layups. Most came from Dent, who missed 15 of 23 shots on the way to 24 points while playing all 50 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went through a stretch where we were pouting and letting one shot affect the next shot,\u201d Cronin said. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t score for a long time, that\u2019s how we got down 10 \u2013 missing wide-open shot after wide-open shot because we act like somebody stole our favorite toy and we\u2019re a 3-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just when it seemed as if Cronin couldn\u2019t get any gloomier, a reporter asked the coach what he thought about the group of alumni representing eight decades of UCLA basketball that was honored at halftime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that you mention it,\u201d Cronin said, \u201cI feel worse about the outcome because we have the best alumni in the history of college basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

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