Will UCLA upset Kentucky again? March Madness Predictions 3/24/17

The Bruins’ point guard looked tired from the breakneck pace at which he played all season.

Here’s a breakdown of the action scheduled Friday night from the South and East Regions in Memphis and NY, respectively.

The final score was 86-75, but the Wildcats led by as many as 14.

“Every game we play is a Super Bowl”, Calipari said. United Kingdom held the Bruins to 43 percent and only 33 points in the first half by chasing their shooters off the 3-point arc and forcing them to take challenged 2s.

UCLA (31-5) carried that moniker until Friday night.

The Bruins were playing in their third Sweet 16 in four years. But he contributed a career-high five assists.

Ball was widely expected to declare for the National Basketball Association draft after this season. Whether it was Ball, Bryce Alford or anyone else, not a single Bruin was able to keep Fox out of the lane. Kentucky will take on No. 1 seed North Carolina, which defeated Butler 92-80 in the first of two South Region semifinal games Friday night. “I’m looking forward to the game just because I like my team, we got a good group of kids”.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was at Madison Square Garden and between games he changed from his garnet (South Carolina) tie to one with orange and blue for Florida. In the final minutes, while Ball was nowhere to be found on offense, Fox was slicing through UCLA’s soft defense and finishing off the Bruins.

UCLA led the nation averaging 90.2 points a game with Kentucky ninth averaging 85.2 points a game.

Monk, the Southeastern Conference player of the year had only seven points in the first half. Berry rolled his right ankle when he landed awkwardly on a 3-point attempt in the first-round rout of Texas Southern, then struggled throughout UNC’s second-round escape against Arkansas. However, the Bruins still had 17 turnovers in the game. Fox would score 24 more points in the second half, bringing his total to 39, a new career high, and the fourth most point total for any United Kingdom player in NCAA tournament history.

Calipari: “At the half we asked our guys, ‘Are you watching this game?” Malik Monk is leading this team with 20 points per game while Edrice Adebayo puts up 13.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per contest. “The rest of you take a backseat, play off of him, but everything we’re doing good is through him the whole half”.

Ball, the more celebrated point guard all season, finished with 10 points, eight assists and four turnovers. The game was a back-and-forth thing for a half, but then Malik Monk got going and the combination of those two freshmen left UCLA – which has two vaunted freshmen in Ball and T.J. Leaf – in the dust, which is a place these sleek Bruins have never been.

The Bruins shot 63 percent (17 of 27) in the second half, but couldn’t stop Kentucky.

The UCLA Basketball team ended their 31-5 season on Friday against the Kentucky Wildcats in the Sweet 16 which means that it is already time to move on to next year… but what will next year look like?

“I’m very, very happy where I’m at, and hopefully that’ll continue”, Alford said.

It wasn’t exactly a fitting end to the season: The team that made more shots than any other in the country couldn’t even draw iron on its final one.

But there will be more Ball’s down the line: Both of his younger brothers, LiAngelo and LaMelo, are already committed to UCLA and head coach Steve Alford.