That was the game-winning shot! Except the ball never went in. It was ruled a goaltend and UCLA took the lead and won, advancing to the next round.
Take a look at these two angles. Is that a goaltend? The shot looks off and there appears to be a chance that it would have missed the rim entirely. Maybe the refs think it could have grazed the rim. We’ll never know. But from these angles, it looks like it would have missed.
However, the risk is too high to be even trying to grab the ball that close to the rim. And it’s odd that the officials can’t go to replay on something like that. Still, it may not have had any chance of going in, but chancing it by reaching for the ball that close to the rim warrants a call. Not a fair call, but it was the call that had to be made.
But at the end of the day... 