The Early Words: UCLA pummels New Mexico State

For eight games, UCLA could not shoot its way out of a barrel with five shotguns and a rocket launcher.
The Bruins hit their field goals at a .415 clip, and some of its best players were to blame.
Senior forward Nikola Dragovic, .241 percent. Sophomore guard Malcolm Lee, .379.
Point guard Jerime Anderson, .348. Three starters, combining for 66-of-199, or just over 33 percent.

On Tuesday, the barrel exploded.

The Bruins built a 39-point lead early in the second half and rolled to a 100-68 win over New Mexico State on Tuesday night at Pauley Pavilion to break a five-game losing streak.

UCLA shot 37-for-66 from the field, and 7-for-14 from the 3-point line, knocking down 19-of-31 shots in the first half. The only place the Bruins struggled was from the free-throw line - as they have all season, at just 56.5 percent - hitting just 19-of-30.
UCLA's hot shooting started early, with a 61.3 percent first half.

"That just gets our confidence going, once we start hitting in the beginning," said Lee, who led all scorers with 20 points. "Especially for a young team like us, we need that to happen. Our easy buckets and our easy shots came from our defense, though. We were making them force bad shots, and we were getting on the boards, getting into the fast break."

UCLA(3-6) had 19 fast-break points and 44 points in the paint, as the guards were able to push the tempo and find guys slashing in the lane.

More importantly, though, was the passing inside and out, as second and third passes around the perimeter led to open looks. One good pass led to another led to another, and the Bruins finished with 19 turnovers to just 11 turnovers, tied for their best turnover margin of the season.

"The second-assist situation, a lot of people don't know about," Lee said. "That starts by rotating it; if a guy gets it in the paint, makes another pass and then recovers, most of the time, that second pass is going to be what's open. That all starts with being aggressive and getting into the paint."

Even after losing starting center James Keefe just over six minutes into the game with what appears to be a separated shoulder, UCLA was still able to run the inside-out game.

Five Bruins scored in double-figures, with freshman forward Reeves Nelson chipping in 16 points and eight rebounds. Roll and freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt each added 14 points and Anderson had 13 for UCLA, which broke a five-game losing streak, its biggest skid since head coach Ben Howland's first season in 2003-04.

But UCLA's dominating performance was not only on offense.

The Bruins limited New Mexico State (3-6) to 38.9 percent shooting from the field and held leading scorer Jahmar Young, who came in averaging 19.9 points per game, to just 13.

Never were the Bruins better than on a New Mexico State possession with just under 13 minutes left in the second half.

UCLA jammed the paint, put pressure on the perimeter and forced three bad passes before knocking it out of bounds with 18 seconds left on the shot clock. The Aggies inbounded the ball and UCLA continued to hound them, forcing a turnover that led to an Anderson 3-pointer to go up 39.

"Our transition was amazing today," Honeycutt said. "That's where we got a lot of our points in the beginning - off of steals, rebounds, blocks. We were just pushing it."