The sweat was still glistening on their foreheads when UCLA players slipped on Pac-12 Conference tournament championship T-shirts inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, holding one finger aloft as they draped arms around each other for a group photo.
Jordan Adams, whose three-pointer in the final minute provided the go-ahead basket in that 2014 title game against Arizona, waved a school banner as fans chanted “U-C-L-A!” Kyle Anderson was the first player to ascend a ladder placed underneath that same basket, pulling a strand of nylon toward him before snipping it.