JALEN SUGGS. UNBELIEVABLE! 🤯🚨@ZagMBB#FinalFourpic.twitter.com/QeEAjENYmG
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 4, 2021
You have company, Christian Laettner. So do you, Kris Jenkins. Lorenzo Charles, may he rest in peace, does too.
Jalen Suggs joined a select club Saturday night after authoring an all-time great March moment that is up there with any of them. Gonzaga versus UCLA goes down as one of the greatest NCAA Tournament games anyone has ever witnessed.
Gonzaga and Baylor will have a lot to live up to in the national championship game Monday night.
Before the national championship game everyone has wanted to see, Gonzaga and UCLA went toe to toe for 45 intense minutes in an instant classic.
Suggs’ buzzer-beating 40 footer off the glass — a Hail Mary for the Easter Vigil, and the first buzzer-beater of this year’s tournament — gave the Bulldogs, top seeds in the West Region, an edge-of-your-seat 93-90 national semifinal overtime victory, sending Cinderella UCLA, the No. 11 seed in the East Region, home in abject heartbreak.
Jalen Suggs celebrates with teammates after his buzzer-beating 3 gave Gonzaga a 93-90 OT win over UCLA. AP“I’ve always said a football game, section championship against Benilde-St. Margaret’s [Minn.] my senior year [of high school] was my greatest sports moment I’ve been a part of,” said Suggs, who had 16 points, six assists, five rebounds and two steals. “It skyrockets above that. I mean, it was nuts.”
Gonzaga and Baylor, the South Region’s No. 1 seed, will meet Monday night — four months to the day after a non-conference showdown between the two powers was canceled due to COVID-19 protocols.
The Zags (31-0) are the first team, since Indiana State in 1979, to reach the final undefeated. They entered Saturday night with just one win by single digits and were a Final Four-record 14-point favorite over UCLA (22-10), which started off this year’s tournament in the First Four.
But the Zags were pushed like they haven’t been all season, trailed in the second half for the first time in this tournament, and could’ve lost at the end of regulation, had a charging call on UCLA’s Johnny Juzang (29 points) in the final seconds not gone their way. And if not for Suggs’ heave, Gonzaga would’ve needed a second overtime because Juzang had pulled UCLA even at 90-90 with 3.3 seconds left.
“I just told them they’ve got to let the last shot go,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said of his Bruins. “And as much as they want to be beat down right now and gutted and miserable, they’ve got to let it go because they’re winners. They won. As a coach, all you can do is ask your players to give you everything they’ve got. And I mean, come on guys, all you’ve got to do is watch.”
When Andrew Nemhardt’s 3-pointer gave the Zags a five-point lead with 1:13 to go, Gonzaga seemed to finally be in command, after not being able to shake dogged UCLA. But much like in their come-from-behind win over Michigan State in the First Four, and upset victories over Alabama and Michigan, the Bruins wouldn’t go away. Jaime Jaquez Jr. hit a 3-pointer and Juzang got to the rebound of his own miss and scored to set up the frantic final sequence.
Suggs caught the inbound pass, quickly dribbled up court while under control and sank the shot off the glass a few steps across half-court. He ran over to a nearby table, jumped on top of it in celebration and was soon mobbed by his teammates.
“Man, that is something that you practice on your mini hoop as a kid or in the gym just messing around,” Suggs said. “And to be able to do that, it’s crazy.”
Gonzaga coach Mark Few said he knew the shot was going in the second the ball left Suggs’ hand because he has seen him making the shot so often in practice. Suggs laughed when that was relayed to him.
“I don’t know that he really believed it was going in,” he said. “Because I didn’t.”
The shot capped a memorable game which had 19 lead changes and 15 ties. Between the two teams, there were 47 assists and just 20 turnovers. The largest lead for either team was seven. They combined to shoot 58.2 percent from the field, the highest mark in a Final Four game since the memorable 1985 Villanova-Georgetown contest in which those teams hit 63 percent of their shots. Nine different players reached double figures.
“This is a moment,” Suggs said, “I’m going to look back on in a while and re-watch.”
He won’t be the only one.
