PORTLAND, Ore. — It was the nightmare of Princeton, the embarrassment of Detroit Mercy, and the humiliation of St. Bonaventure, all rolled together on a despairing march into madness.
It was the worst kind of UCLA basketball history repeating itself, the fourth-seeded Bruins being tackled around the ankles by an energetic 13th-seeded Akron team in a furious first-round game at Portland’s raucous Moda Center.
The Bruins could have lost. The Bruins probably should have lost. The ugliest of UCLA tradition dictates that they would have lost.
