| Bruins easily take down Wildcats
It really wasn’t supposed to be a cakewalk.
In the days leading up to Saturday’s game between UCLA and Arizona, analysts and casual fans discussed Arizona’s surge in recent weeks, and how this could be the year that Arizona broke its six-game losing streak to the Bruins.
ESPN analyst Hubert Davis actually picked the Wildcats to win during ESPN’s College GameDay, which was broadcast from Pauley Pavilion in front of a few hundred students.
Arizona had apparently improved its toughness under head coach Kevin O’Neil. They were more defensive-minded.
They were supposed to be a challenge.
But despite scoring the final nine points of the game as they left their starters in to contend with UCLA’s reserves, the Wildcats were run out of Pauley Pavilion to the tune of 82-60. And the game was not nearly as close as that score indicates.
The Bruins made just two 3-point shots in the entire game, but thanks to what guard Russell Westbrook called “unselfish” play, the Bruins notched their second straight 20-plus point victory over a Pac-10 school.
“I just think we have great team unity on and off the court,” Westbrook said. “When it gets down to crunch time, we all play together, we play really unselfish.”
Freshman center Kevin Love proved once again why many are considering him a one-year-and-done college player. Love scored 26 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. He once again showed his versatility, stepping out to hit a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired, as well as scoring on a variety of tip-ins and low post moves. It was the 13th double-double of the season for the freshman.
“Coach Howland always says there’s no such thing as a selfish rebound,” Love said. “If I just keep going to the offensive glass, I’m going to keep getting easy put backs. You know, 10 points and 10 rebounds, I’m trying to go for that every game.”
In the post-game media conference, coach Ben Howland playfully ribbed Kevin Love for his lack of perfection on the night, but went on to shower the freshman with praise.
“Kevin had just an unbelievable game,” Howland said. “He’s definitely the best freshman I ever coached. He doesn’t play like a freshman, does he? He is pretty dominating. I’m really disappointed he missed a free throw. What happened tonight?”
The missed free throw was Love’s first attempt of the game, and he went on to finish 7-of-8 from the line on the night.
UCLA’s defense in the first half was nearly flawless. The Wildcats scored just 22 points and seemed out of sync offensively, throwing passes away and doing a pretty fair job of feeding the Bruins’ fastbreaks – though that was likely not their intention.
The Bruins had 10 steals on the night, and scored 18 points off of turnovers.
After going up 16-6 at the 13:20 mark in the first half, the lead for the Bruins was never again in single digits.
It was such a severe blowout that Howland took his starters out at the 4-minute mark in the second half, and put in the very end of the bench with a minute to go. When he began substituting, the score was 80-49. The Wildcats, still playing their starters in the final four minutes, went on an 11-2 run to end the game.
Still, Howland was complimentary in the post-game.
“That was a great win and they’re an outstanding team,” Howland said. “Arizona is seventh in the country in the RPI and a convincing win over a team that good was a really, really great way to top off the weekend for us. I thought we played our best two games back-to-back we have all year.”
But if Arizona was actually that good, it remains to be seen what Pac-10 team can challenge this firing-on-all-cylinders UCLA team. Since losing to the University of Southern California in a shoddy overall performance, the Bruins have notched four straight victories, in which they have scored 80 points or more.
Perhaps they have had a wakeup call.
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