Maybe the Zona Zoo can take some heart in the fact that Jay Williams was partly wrong the last time.
In GameDay's 2015 appearance at McKale Center, Williams revealed a T-shirt that said "#Bear Down 4 Indy," and while UA beat UCLA later that day, the Wildcats never made it to the Final Four in Indianapolis. On Saturday, he teased the student section about that moment and asked if they should "Bear Down for Phoenix."
Then he ripped off his dress shirt to reveal a UCLA jersey and said "Nope."
Jay Williams gets teepeed for picking UCLA pic.twitter.com/SbjHC67XFV
β Bruce Pascoe (@BrucePascoe) February 25, 2017
(Staffers had provided the Zona Zoo with the toilet paper beforehand "in case" Williams picked UCLA).
Williams' pick wrapped up the third basketball GameDay held at McKale, which also featured Lauri Markkanen winning one of its Oscar-style "awards" - his was for "best foreign film" and the Finnish freshman beat out Gonzaga's Przemek Karnowski (Poland) and Iowa's Peter Jok (Sudan).
Markkanen appeared on a pretaped video to offer thanks. (For the second straight time, no UA players or coaches showed up at GameDay, though they did in 2011-12).
Other "awards:" Oregon's Dillon Brooks won for Best Visual Performance (a.k.a. flopping), Siena coach Jimmy Patsos won for Best Animated Feature (for his "air handshakes" after Rider skipped the postgame handshake line), and Kansas' Frank Mason won for Best Actor in a Leading Role (this drew cheers from the Zona Zoo, who had roundly booed Lonzo Ball's nomination).
The show also featured a great video from Cleveland of the four Cavaliers with alumni ties to today's UA-UCLA game.
Richard Jefferson, still rocking his Kyrie Irving-inspired "Flat World Champions" T-shirt, teased Kevin Love about UCLA's good players while Derrick Williams and Channing Frye joined in.
"You have Lonzo Ball. You have Lonzo Ball. And you have Lonzo Ball," Jefferson said.
Cavs teammates now. College rivals forever.
β ESPN (@espn) February 25, 2017
UCLA-Arizona in a top-5 clash on ESPN tonight: Who ya got? pic.twitter.com/fLJLLSV3p5
A clip of the Arizona baseball parody of "Major League" was also shown during GameDay show.
Among other discussions held by the crew: Rick Pitino's interaction with a fan, Josh Hart being an Eagle Scout and whether Northwestern needs to worry about making its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance (Bilas said no).
Among the signs waved in the Zona Zoo:
"LaVar Ball is Crazier than Bill Walton."
"Daddy Issues (with Ball mugshot)"
"Pay my tuition please: 505-801-8045"
"I need money for the Pac-12 Tournament"
"Lonzo Ball pours his milk before his cereal"
"UCLA #5 Fake News."
And:Β "Fire Goodell"
Big heads waved included several UA players plus Erika Barnes, Bill Walton and Steve Kerr.
We had a live blog of the GameDay filming.
USA Today calls the UA-UCLA game the "game of the weekend."
The Bruins could use a win to convince the NCAA selection committee of a better seed.
Arizona is between a 1.5-2.0-point favorite, according to VegasInsider.
After the UA-UCLA game at 6:15 p.m., ESPN will show Gonzaga trying to complete a perfect regular season against BYU starting at 8:15.
UA-signee-turned-Aussie-pro Terrance Ferguson finished his seasonΒ Down UnderΒ averaging 4.6 points and 1.1 rebounds, but he's still projected as a first-round pick in the June NBA Draft (so are three players in today's UA-UCLA game).
