UCLA breaks the Waves

Ben Howland glanced over at Tyler Honeycutt and smiled coyly, Honeycutt broke into a wide grin, and Reeves Nelson let out a hearty laugh.

This run and gun is sure fun.

UCLA used a 26-2 run between the first and second halves and went on to a 79-69 win over Pepperdine on Monday night at Pauley Pavilion in the second game of the NIT Season Tip-Off West Regional. Now the Bruins face the University of the Pacific tonight - the Tigers defeated Nevada, 64-53, in the opening game - with the winner advancing to Madison Square Garden early next week for the semifinals.

Midway through the first half, visions of Broadway started slipping away, a mini-spurt by the Waves putting UCLA down eight with 2 minutes, 40 seconds remaining.

To that point, the Bruins were sloppier than a pie-eating contest, turnovers galore, small forward Tyler Honeycutt with four alone.

Then UCLA put on the brakes and slowed things down.

Namely, Pepperdine.

The Bruins clamped down on the Waves, particularly super-scorer Keion Bell, who had a game-high 24 points, and turned up the heat on the other end, closing the half on a 10-0 run after a Brendan Lane 3-pointer with 23 seconds left.

"We just knew we were getting too lazy on defense," said Honeycutt, who had 16 points, four assists, four rebounds and four steals. "We knew we needed stops to get back in the game. Once we got them, we got easy transition points, and they weren't able to get back into the zone."

UCLA, though, almost never left it.

After Pepperdine's Jonathan Dupre tied the score at 36 less than a minute into the second half, the Bruins went on a 16-0 spurt, thriving in transition.

With shooting guard Malcolm Lee sidelined with a sprained ankle suffered in the first half, Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson took it to the Waves.

Nelson had 13 points in the second half - finishing with 20 - while working both in the up-tempo game and in the post, where he teamed with freshman center Joshua Smith to exploit the Pepperdine posts.

The incredibly inked sophomore power forward has been a key factor in UCLA's 2-0 start, leading the team at 18.5 points per game, hitting 14-of-16 shots in two games.

"That's a great percentage," Howland said. "He did a much better job in the second half of
sealing. First half he looked a little lost out there at one point. When he seals in there and demands the ball, we need to get it to him."

With Nelson hurting the Waves in transition and fellow sophomore power forward Brendan Lane chipping in on the outside - Lane's two 3-pointers and seven points were crucial - Smith was able to control the post.

Smith had 13 points and five offensive rebounds and blossomed midway through the second
half, shooing the Waves away like flies.
Smith's interior game then translated to the outside, where the Bruins turned on the jets once more.

"The first half, we weren't really pushing as much as we want to because we weren't getting stops," Honeycutt said. "They were getting loose balls. After all that, and when we started to make our run, (junior point guard Lazeric Jones) made a really good job of getting the outlet and going with it.

"Once we focused on that, it helped us break the game open."