LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Luc Richard Mbah A Moute scored 18 points despite playing the final 8 1/2 minutes with four fouls, leading No. 5 UCLA to a 73-68 victory over No. 20 Kentucky on Tuesday night in the semifinals of the EA Sports Maui Invitational.
The Bruins (3-0) will play No. 19 Georgia Tech in the championship game Wednesday night. The Yellow Jackets overcame a 16-point halftime deficit in a 92-85 victory over No. 12 Memphis.
Mbah A Moute scored six of UCLA’s last 10 points, ignoring the foul trouble to go inside for the first four points and then throwing down a dunk on the break to make it 69-65 with 25 seconds to play.
Kentucky (3-1) got to 71-68 on a layup by Randolph Morris with 2 seconds to go, but Arron Afflalo, who struggled from the field all game, made two free throws with .6 seconds to go for the final margin.
Afflalo finished with 14 points on 5-for-18 shooting, including 1-for-8 from 3-point range, while Lorenzo Mata added 12 points and 11 rebounds.
Joe Crawford had 16 points for the Wildcats, while freshman guard Derrick Jasper had 12 points and nine rebounds.
UCLA jumped out to a 26-9 lead, but the Wildcats were able to get it down to 38-30 at halftime.
The final 10 minutes were the kind of game one would expect from the two most successful programs in college basketball history – UCLA holds a record 11 NCAA championships, four ahead of runner-up Kentucky.
The Wildcats were finally able to tie the game for the first time at 48 on a 3 by Crawford with 11:46 to play, and their first lead of the game came 1:24 later on two free throws by Jasper.
There were three lead changes and four ties the rest of the way and neither team managed more than a five-point lead until Afflalo’s dunk with 8 seconds left made it 71-65.
Mbah A Moute scored down low to make it 67-62 with 2:20 left and Crawford answered with a three-point play 18 seconds later.
After a Kentucky turnover and a UCLA miss, Wildcats coach Tubby Smith called two timeouts in a 13-second span, but Bruins point guard Darren Collison foiled any strategy by stealing the ball from Ramel Bradley and then found Mbah A Moute on the break for the game-clinching dunk.
Afflalo, one of two returning starters from last season’s national runner-up, entered the game shooting 56 percent from the field and 55 percent on 3s. In his first two seasons at UCLA he shot 46 percent overall and 37 percent from beyond the arc.