The No. 2-seeded UCLA men's basketball team absorbed a 79-76 loss to No. 3-seeded Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 on Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena.
 
The loss ended UCLA's season, as the Bruins closed the year with a 31-6 overall record.

Thursday night's game came down to the final seconds, as both UCLA (31-6) and Gonzaga (31-5) led by at least 10 points in multiple instances in the second half.
 
Gonzaga's Julian Strawther nailed a deep 3-pointer with just six seconds remaining to give the Bulldogs the lead for good at 78-76. Strawther made one of two three throws in the final seconds, and UCLA's last-second 3-point attempt with 1.4 seconds to play was unsuccessful.
 
Gonzaga forward Drew Timme scored a game-high 36 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Strawther (16 points) and Malachi Smith (14 points) had productive second halves to join him in double digits.
 
The Bruins were paced by senior Jaime Jaquez Jr., who totaled 29 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman Amari Bailey finished with 19 points and senior Tyger Campbell had 14 points.
 
"We addressed why we lost – we got outrebounded by 24," said Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach. "We had a tough whistle and our guards didn't make a shot in the second half. Then I told them how proud I was of them because they didn't flinch. I mean, you lose two of the best players in the Pac-12, defensive player of the year, the freshman of the year, we still expect to win."
 
"And I'm happy because they still expected to win. I'm happy that they still expected to win, and that we're still upset that we lost. I had people say what a game we played against Arizona in the conference finals, Thought you were going to get beat 25 without those two guys … there's a lot of good teams out there this year, but a lot of them got whacked by 20 on multiple nights. Not us, not us. It took a great player and a 32-foot shot, and a great player in Drew Timme and a really tough whistle to send us home, despite everything we've been through.
 
Trailing by eight points with just over a minute remaining in regulation (at 74-66), the Bruins staged a late comeback to take the lead in the game's last 15 seconds. UCLA registered a 10-1 scoring run before Strawther's game-winning shot.
 
Jaquez Jr. was the catalyst for that UCLA scoring run. He drove the lane and scored on back-to-back possessions to get the Bruins within two with 45 seconds left. After Timme missed a pair of free throw attempts with 24 seconds left, Campbell found Bailey on the left side for an open 3-point attempt. Bailey buried the shot to put UCLA ahead, 76-75, with 12 seconds to play.
 
UCLA had built a 13-point lead by halftime, forcing Gonzaga into nine turnovers while committing just one. Three separate Bruins scored in double figures in the opening stanza alone, including 13 apiece from Bailey and Campbell. The Bruins pulled away at the end of the first half with a 15-4 run, capped by a Campbell jumper at the 46-second mark that made the score 46-33.
 
The Bruins' shooting went cold in the second half, going over 11 minutes of game action without a field goal until the late run. After Timme had accounted for over half of Gonzaga's offensive production in the first half, the Bulldogs spread it out in the final 20 minutes, with three different players scoring a dozen points or more.
 
UCLA was making its 52nd appearance all-time in the NCAA Tournament and appeared in the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive season.
 
Jaquez Jr.'s 29-point effort pushed the senior's career point total to 1,802, moving into the No. 8 slot on UCLA's all-time scoring list.