Despite trailing by 17 points at one point to a program that has only lost one home game all season, the Minnesota Golden Gophers found a way to upset the UCLA Bruins on Tuesday night at Pauley Pavillion in Westwood.

The hero of the game is, without a doubt, senior forward Dawson Garcia. The Minnesota native had perhaps the greatest game of his collegiate career, finishing with 31 points and eight rebounds.

While Garcia's 31 points are not a career-high, how he achieved them truly stands out. In the second half, Garcia was phenomenal, and that description likely doesn't do him justice either.

Garcia, over the final 20 minutes, had a ridiculous 27 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including 2-of-3 from three-point range. He was also sent to the free throw line for 12 attempts in the second half, making 11 of those 12 attempts. He was the only Gopher to attempt free throws in the second half. At one point in the second half, Garcia scored 13 straight points for the Gophers.

Furthermore, Garcia's 27 points in the second half matched UCLA's entire team output for the half.

Additionally, both Mike Mitchell Jr and Lu'Cye Patterson finished with double-digit scoring efforts. Mitchell Jr. finished the evening with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting, making 4-of-10 three-point attempts while Patterson was 5-for-12 including 1-for-6 from long range en route to an 11-point scoring effort.

While the Gophers were able to pull off the comeback, it was a game that early on did not appear that it would go their way. It was another slow start for the Gophers on Tuesday, making just three of their first 12 attempts in the opening 10 minutes, resulting in a 16-7 deficit at the midway part of the first half.

That lead in the first half would only continue to grow for UCLA as an 11-2 run for the Bruins from 9:24 to 5:33 in the half would extend an eight-point lead from 18-10 to 29-12.

Before halftime, the Gophers would however be able to shrink the Bruins lead down to as low as eight points before a three-pointer in the final minute of the half sent UCLA to the locker room with a 34-23 lead.

Coming out of the break, Minnesota would immediately make their presence known with a 10-2 run in the opening five minutes of action, cutting UCLA's lead down to just three points. While Ben Johnson's program came out on fire in that second half, they were unable to completely erase the Bruins lead until the final two minutes of the contest.

After being within two or three possessions of the Bruins for most of the half, Garcia would put together his aforementioned 13 straight points for Minnesota. Thanks to Garcia's 13-point surge, including a 6-0 run from 3:49 to 2:54 in the second half, the Gophers would capture their first lead of the evening on a Lu'Cye Patterson layup with 1:02 remaining in the game.

UCLA would briefly recapture the lead 18 seconds later and it would come down to the Gophers' final offensive possession as Lu'Cye Patterson would aggressively push toward the basket in the final seconds, to give Minnesota a 62-61 lead with eight seconds to go.

On the Bruins' final possession, guard Dylan Andrews would be called for a charging call, sending Garcia back to the line to ice the game for the Gophers and ultimately provide the final score of 64-61.

With the win, the Gophers improve to 14-12 on the season including 6-9 in conference play. Minnesota will host the Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday afternoon at Williams Arena. The Nittany Lions will take on Nebraska on Wednesday evening at home before traveling to Minneapolis for Saturday.

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