LOS ANGELES — When Sunday ends, UCLA coach Adam Wright said, he doesn’t know what’ll happen.
When his father died in early October, there was no public acknowledgement. And Wright never missed a game, the 15-year UCLA head coach still on the pool deck for every single Bruins match through the end of a shimmering two-loss season. Catharsis, for the time being, has been put on hold.
But Wright’s mind has been a jumble in the last few month, crowded with thoughts of family and grief and the program he’s held so dear, and his response has been simple: come up for air when a chance at a championship is over.
“They keep me here,” Wright said of his program, after UCLA’s win Saturday afternoon over Princeton. “Tomorrow, maybe, opens a whole new door … because I’ve just been insulated by these guys. And I’m just so grateful for this group.”
When that group has gotten in the water, as redshirt-freshman attacker Frederico Jucá Carsalade said, they’re ready to fight for him. Ready to die for him. And after two losses on MPSF tournament weekend marred a previously-undefeated season, they dominated Biola in a quarterfinal Friday and outlasted a hungry Princeton team 17-13 in the semifinal, advancing to the tournament final on Sunday to play Cal for an NCAA title.
“We’re fighting really hard,” Jucá Carsalade said, “to give him this present, now, at the end of the year, and give him a little comfort in his heart.”
It’s been a special group, Wright said, because they’ve bought into the culture he preaches: at UCLA, we don’t care who scores. And no one, perhaps, has adopted that mantra better than Makoto Kenney, a Nikola-Jokic-level offensive mastermind who’s adopted a playmaking role with aplomb as a senior.
In the third-quarter of a back-and-forth affair, Kenney took a pass and seemed poised to fire across the pool — but instead no-looked a dish to senior Jack Larsen, who put away a goal to a smile and fist-pump from Kenney. And in the fourth quarter, with the shot clock winding down, Kenney cut to the goal for a pass — only to get mauled underwater, flounder, and somehow barely tip a squibber in the direction of USC’s Giorgio Alessandria for a goal to give UCLA a hint of breathing room.
Larsen scored four goals, aided by three from Alessandria and three from freshman Wade Sherlock. But Kenney’s distribution was the key to UCLA’s offense — an irreplaceable piece who the Bruins had missed sorely in their two losses in the MPSF tournament, out with a hand injury.
Goal here from UCLA’s Jack Larsen gave Bruins a 7-6 lead, but Princeton responds with two goals before the half to take an 8-7 lead after Q2 pic.twitter.com/9MG5uUJUJZ
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) December 2, 2023
“He had eight? See, I was upset with him for losing the ball — there you go,” Wright joked postgame. “But that’s special, eight in one game, that’s incredible.”
Los Angeles lost the chance for a crosstown rivalry in the NCAA title game Sunday, as a grind-it-out semifinal between USC and Cal ended in confusion and controversy. With less than a minute remaining and USC down 10-9, Cal wound down the shot clock before goalie Adrian Weinberg chucked a long-ball pass down the pool that had little chance of ending in a goal — except as the shot-clock buzzer sounded, a referee whistled for an incursion on a jostling Andrej Grgurevic.
“Maybe you can hit the portal,” Cal coach Kirk Everist joked to Weinberg postgame, “and make some money for a football team. That was a pretty good pass.”
Cal grinded down the shot clock again to the nub, and as a last-second USC try failed, senior Massimo Di Martire went absolutely ballistic in the pool — splashing his arms in anger at a nearby referee and shouting in anger in a minute-long tirade that resulted in a red card.
Crazy ending to NCAA men’s water polo semifinal as Cal outlasts USC 10-9. USC was extremely upset over late exclusion call. A Trojan (believe that’s senior Massimo Di Martire) absolutely loses it at the referees afterwards. Watch below. pic.twitter.com/d2tOlcLMNv
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) December 3, 2023
“There’s 1,000 calls we wish we went a different way that game and throughout the season,” senior Max Miller said postgame, “so it’s just one of those at the wrong time.”
It’ll set the stage for a historic Cal-UCLA rivalry game for the championship Sunday afternoon, and a final chance for this UCLA team to give Wright that present.
