Arizona buzzer-beater comes 0.1 second too late, but Wildcats hold off TCU in OT

Arizona narrowly missed beating a second-half buzzer, and narrowly missed winning the 2022 NCAA men's tournament's most dramatic game with a walk-off dunk — but then, with celebrations cut short and San Diego stunned, the top-seeded Wildcats staved off TCU's upset bid and won in overtime, 85-80.

With the tournament's final second-round game tied at 75, and with three seconds to play, Arizona forced a TCU turnover. Dalen Terry pounced and raced down the court as clocks raced toward zero.

He glided to the rim as 0.3 seconds became 0.2 and 0.1.

He dropped an orange ball through a gaping hoop, and sprinted across the court in elation.

But the buzzer had sounded a tenth of a second too soon. His hands had pulled back a tenth of a second too late. Referees waved off the winner. Terry's mouth hung open in disbelief.

Arizona, though, recovered from the heartbreak and responded. Bennedict Mathurin, the star of the entire show, took hold of it late in OT. His 25th and 26th points gave Arizona a two-point lead with under three minutes to go. His 29th and 30th put them up three with 70 seconds remaining.

Christian Koloko, who scored 28 on 12-of-13 shooting, sealed victory with, of all things, a dunk.

It was regulation, though, that produced drama and controversy, and oh-so nearly produced a winner. And for a while, it looked like that winner could be the Horned Frogs.

For 30 minutes, Arizona and ninth-seeded TCU battled. One was a title contender, and the other a relative afterthought, but for 30 minutes, they were equals. Then the Wildcats began to pull away. The underdogs began to fade. Order, it seemed, had been restored.

But the Horned Frogs erased a nine-point deficit. They clawed back, holding Arizona scoreless for more than five minutes. Their burly center, Eddie Lampkin Jr., bullied Arizona's bigs, and converted a layup through contact for a two-point lead with 2:16 to go.

He lowered his hands to the floor, intimating that Koloko, at 7-foot-1, was too small to contain him.

He flexed, and soaked in the sound of thousands of Arizona fans silenced.

He scored again with 36 seconds remaining to put the Horned Frogs up three. But that's when Mathurin, for neither the first time nor the last, rose to the occasion.

He'd already put Lampkin on a poster. Now, with clocks showing 00:15, the Pac-12 Player of the Year refused a screen and, from the edge of the logo, found nothing but net.

The game, then, rested tenuously in the hands of TCU guard Mike Miles. That frightened Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, so, in the subsequent timeout, Lloyd devised a plan to force the ball elsewhere. He asked Koloko to trap Miles. "I ain't gon' lie," Koloko later said, "I was scared."

"I knew he was gonna try to get at me, and try to get a foul," Koloko continued. "We knew he was gonna try to be a hero," and all of that is exactly what Miles did.

Koloko, though, walled off the sideline, and sent Miles spinning back toward Terry. They collided. Miles tumbled into the backcourt, and searched for a whistle that never sounded. Horned Frogs screamed for a foul. For a split second, Wildcats screamed for a backcourt violation, but then they saw Terry galloping the other way.

"I saw the ball pop loose," Lloyd said. "I thought we had it. I thought there was enough time. I looked up. Dalen was at the top of the key with a second to go. I thought, 'maybe.'"

Terry took one dribble. He extended his strides to their limits. He leapt toward the rim, and reached for it, and hung above the restricted area, below a clock that still showed "0.1."

His teammates, and the Wildcats pep band, and Arizona fans throughout Viejas Arena leapt with him.

A bright red light flashed one frame later, and spoiled a classic March party.

"But you know what?" Lloyd said. "There was nothing wrong with that going to overtime, and having to play another five minutes, and find a way."

There was nothing wrong with letting the game's protagonist, Mathurin — the Pac-12 Player of the Year, and "the best player in the country," as Terry screamed postgame — have the final say in OT.

"Ben's not afraid of the moment," Lloyd said of his star. "He's a special player who has an ability to rise it up another level when needed. And he has that clutch gene."