All Bruins

UCLA Fans Troll Arizona After First Round Upset Loss to Princeton

The Wildcats' trip to the NCAA tournament was short-lived, and the Bruin faithful did their best to remind their Pac-12 rivals of their loss.

Sam Connon

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Two No. 2 seeds from the Pac-12 took the trip up to Sacramento for March Madness on Thursday.

One lost, and the other – in some ways – won twice.

A few hours before UCLA men's basketball (30-5, 18-2 Pac-12) beat No. 15 seed UNC Asheville 86-53 at the Golden 1 Center, Arizona (28-7, 14-6 Pac-12) fell 59-55 to No. 15 seed Princeton on the same court. Coach Mick Cronin and the Bruins' players said after their win that they didn't pay too much mind to the Wildcats' loss, but the same certainly could not be said for their fanbase.

UCLA fans far and wide made sure to rub Arizona fans' face in their team's loss, considering the results at the Pac-12 tournament five days earlier.

The Bruins were without guard Jaylen Clark and center Adem Bona in the conference title game on March 11, and they still nearly pulled off the win over the Wildcats in Las Vegas. Guard Courtney Ramey hit a second-chance game-winning 3-pointer to down UCLA in that game, though, making it two years in a row where Arizona won the season series 2-1 and beat the blue and gold in the Pac-12 tournament championship game.

After the final buzzer, UCLA's radio crew of Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray gave a play-by-play of a group of Arizona fans harassing Cronin's 81-year-old father, Hep, in the stands. That sparked a days-long battle on Twitter filled with rumors, misinformation and arguments that typified what made the UCLA-Arizona rivalry so unique within Pac-12 basketball circles.

The trash talking continued through Selection Sunday and up until the beginning of the NCAA tournament, but it became far more one-sided when the Wildcats' season came to a close.

Ramey had a chance to send Thursday's game against Princeton to overtime with the same 3-pointer he buried UCLA with, but he missed it the second time around. Guard Kerr Kriisa got another look after an offensive rebound, and he missed that shot as well.

When the game went final, UCLA fans and media quickly took to Twitter to troll Arizona for the loss.

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UCLA fans are no strangers to the kind of loss Arizona suffered Thursday, since the Bruins notably fell to Princeton themselves in the first round of the 1996 NCAA tournament, just a year removed from their 11th national title. That 43-41 loss was coach Jim Harrick's final game with UCLA, and it opened what has now become a 28-year championship drought.

Arizona, on the other hand, hasn't even been to the Final Four since 2001, and its own championship drought has now been extended to 27 years.

With the loss Thursday, the Wildcats notched their second first-round defeat at the hands of a No. 15 seed in program history, becoming the only team in the country to accomplish that feat. Arizona is the only school to lose to seeds No. 11 though No. 15 in NCAA tournament history.

As for Thursday's performance, it wasn't just fans who got in on mocking the Wildcats – Clark did as well.

The injured guard directly called out former Arizona guard Dalen Terry, his old Compton Magic AAU teammate who now plays for the Chicago Bulls.

The rest of Clark's teammates, who were in Sacramento for UCLA's game against UNC Asheville later in the night, let their play do the talking instead. Rather than losing to a No. 15 seed by four points like the Wildcats did, the Bruins blew their opponent out by 33 points – the largest margin of victory by any team on the opening day of the NCAA tournament.

UCLA will face Northwestern at 5:40 p.m. PT on Saturday, while Arizona has left Sacramento to go home to Tucson.

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Sam Connon
SAM CONNON

Sam Connon was the Publisher and Managing Editor at Sports Illustrated and FanNation’s All Bruins from 2021 to 2023. He is now a staff writer at Sports Illustrated and FanNation’s Fastball. He previously covered UCLA football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country and golf for The Daily Bruin from 2017 to 2021, serving as the paper's Sports Editor from 2019 to 2020. Connon has also been a contributor for 247Sports' Bruin Report Online, Rivals' BruinBlitz, Dash Sports TV, SuperWestSports, Prime Time Sports Talk, The Sports Life Blog and Patriots Country, Sports Illustrated and FanNation’s New England Patriots site. His work as a sports columnist has been awarded by the College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Connon graduated from UCLA in June 2021 and is originally from Winchester, Massachusetts.