UCLA coach Mick Cronin hoping to crack win column for first time against Gonzaga’s Mark Few

LAS VEGAS – UCLA coach Mick Cronin has a gut feeling on what might unfold Tuesday when his second-ranked Bruins take on No. 1 Gonzaga at T-Mobile Arena.

“I’ll give you guys a side note, people don’t know this one,” Cronin said. “Mark (Few, Gonzaga coach) and I have played twice. He’s got me both times in overtime, and both times in regulation my team had the ball.

“A no-call in Maui that he would admit to by Robert Sacre against Yancy Gates and I would say it was a charge (on UCLA’s Johnny Juzang last April at the Final Four), great play by (Drew) Timme. He’s got me twice, so I would expect overtime Tuesday night since every time we play it seems to happen.”

Cronin’s first reference was to his tenure at Cincinnati, which lost to Gonzaga 61-59 in the 2009 Maui Invitational championship game. The second was regarding Timme, who had four fouls, drawing a charge on Juzang late in regulation last April to help send the game to overtime.

Timme then scored the first six points in the extra session, and Jalen Suggs ended it with a 40-foot buzzer beater that handed Gonzaga a pulsating 93-90 win.

Rewind to Maui and it was a physical game that will never be confused with the offensive shootout between GU and UCLA at the Final Four in Indianapolis last April. The 2009 game was tight, tense and occasionally testy, packed with hard fouls, floor burns and three technical fouls – one on Gonzaga’s Demetri Goodson and one each on Cincinnati’s Cashmere Wright and Steve Toyloy.

“It was a street fight,” Few summarized shortly after it ended.

Few didn’t see Sacre’s block on Gates on a lob pass at the rim late in regulation the same way as Cronin.

“He made an incredibly athletic play to turn and go back and make that block,” Few said of Sacre shortly after Gonzaga’s win.

After the game, Cronin said Gates told him he got fouled and “the guys in the ESPN truck told me he got fouled.”

Sacre tied the game with 15.6 seconds left in regulation with a short jumper in the lane. His dunk off a pass from Steven Gray gave the Zags the lead for good in overtime. Cincinnati missed 5 of 7 free throws in the extra session. Gray and Matt Bouldin shared tournament MVP honors. Sacre finished with 14 points.