Other than the thin brace cocooning his left ankle on Friday evening, TJ Leaf showed only one, tiny sign of the sprained ankle that had nearly dealt a serious blow to UCLA’s Final Four aspirations at the start of March.
Leaf began Friday’s Pac-12 tournament semifinal game against Arizona with a dunk on the first possession. As he ran back on defense, he paused near the foul line and gave his ankle a little wiggle, as if probing its stability.
Then he planted hard, set up on defense and grabbed a rebound.