UCLA edges UC Irvine 74-73
The good news for UCLA: Ben Howland did not cancel Christmas.
But Howland's players feared he would have, had the Bruins not outlasted UC Irvine on Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.
Two days after the Bruins needed a second-half surge to come from behind to defeat Montana State at Pauley Pavilion, UCLA eked out another win on its home court, defeating the Anteaters, 74-73, after watching a 15-point lead disappear.
The Bruins picked up their fifth-straight win but needed every last second to seal it, poor free-throw shooting down the stretch nearly proving deadly.
UCLA missed six-of-eight free throws in the final minute after the Anteaters crept back into the game, and the final miss almost sealed the Bruins' fate.
After UC Irvine guard Darren Moore banked in a 3-pointer with eight seconds left to cut UCLA's lead to one, freshman guard Tyler Lamb got the inbound pass and was immediately fouled.
He narrowly missed the first free throw and the second attempt caromed into the arms of Moore who sprinted down the court with the ball but was trapped in the corner, unable to get a shot off.
"That wasn't an easy game," Howland said. "Hopefully we learn from these experiences, we get up there and make our foul shots. If those guys step up down the stretch, we're not coming down to the last second with them having the ball."
It was just about the only Bruin' stop in crunch time, as the team severely missed the services of leading scorer and rebounder Tyler Honeycutt.
To the rescue, the Bruin backcourt.
Junior guards Malcolm Lee and Lazeric Jones each scored 20 points, a season-high for Jones, with Lee exploding in the first half.
Lee was 7-of-12 shooting, hitting 4-of-8 3-pointers, as he got hot early against UC Irvine, which started off in man-to-man defense before switching to a zone after the Bruins got hot.
Lee had 14 first-half points before UCLA headed into the locker room, leading the team in scoring for the second straight game, after scoring 18 in the team's 75-59 win over the Bobcats on Tuesday.
"The zone just slowed down everybody," Lee said. "When they were in man, it was a lot more fluid. I noticed about their zone, the difference between them and Montana State, they're zone was a lot more compact. A lot of times when our big guys got it, they couldn't turn or do anything. There weren't a lot of driving gaps."
UCLA guards were not able to do work in the lane, so they had to instead look outside.
The Bruins hit 10-of-20 3-pointers - four each for Lee and Jones - but the team's biggest offensive play on Thursday might just have come from another guard.
With 7 minutes, 36 seconds left in the game, backup point guard Jerime Anderson found an opening on the right corner and buried a three right after UC Irvine cut the Bruins' lead to five at 63-58, the closest margin since just over three minutes into the game.
In what is becoming a familiar refrain, the Bruins said after the game that they took the Anteaters lightly.
UCLA was sloppy on offense, committing 17 turnovers, and sloppier on defense, letting UC Irvine hit from all angles, four Anteaters scoring in double-figures.
"With this game, we had our opportunities, we had the lead, the only thing it came to, they played harder than we did," said freshman center Joshua Smith, who had 14 points and eight rebounds. "They just went for the loose balls, executed, got and-ones. We were fortunate to get the win."
Fortunate to get the win in their last tune-up before Pac-10 play begins next Thursday against Washington State at Pauley Pavilion.
Fortunate to get the win, and fortunate to get Christmas.
"It would've been an absolutely horrible Christmas around the Howland household had we lost this game," Howland said.
Howland needs to get these guys thinking old school, hard nose basketball. It is troubling they way they are playing against inferior competition.
Next week: 10-1 Cougars up first, fresh off an upset win against a good Baylor team. Then comes a dangerous Huskies team with some quick and talented players.
These guys need to find themselves this year. They are looking like, maybe, a .500 team at this point. There are talented players on this team, and there seems to be some chemistry that wasn't there last year. They just don't have a good, hard blue coller attitude.
Ben Howland needs to figure out how to bring that about.
I don’t know how people can continue defending Howland. What I saw last night was the same problems that have been plaguing UCLA for several years, and that have cost UCLA several games.
I’ve never understood the strategy of having the centers “hedge” on a pick-and-roll at the top of the key. One of two things generally happen: the center picks up a useless foul 25 feet from the basket, or someone else is wide open under the basket for an easy layup or dunk. It makes even less sense with Smith. First, he’s proven to be foul prone, so why put him in that position? Second, he’s most effective guarding the basket. He needn’t ever roam more than 7 feet from the hoop on defense.
The time out strategy is maddeningly baffling. Every beat writer, columnist, blogger, and half-witted commentator in town has taken Howland to task on it, but still not changes. Think of the needless time outs he blew in the first half. And what’s the point in taking a time out after a UCLA made basket? Those time outs were needed at the end of the game.
Third is the fallacy that going to the slow-down offense late is effective. The only thing it’s effective in doing is letting the other team back in the game. UCLA just lolly gags and passes the ball around the perimeter, then ends up taking a bad shot. I’ve got news for you: UCLA isn’t good enough to play offense like that. They get big leads by running the break and penetrating…why change the strategy?
The free throw shooting has been terrible for years, and I guarantee you it will cost UCLA one or two conference games this season. Look at stats for NBA and college games. Typically, free throw shooting—both attempts and makes—are often the difference. Over 40 or 48 minutes, teams usually has about the same number of made field goals. Games decided by 10 or fewer points are won at the line. Something needs to be done about UCLA’s free throw shooting.
Now, you can reply with your own laundry list of things Howland does well, but the four items I noted above are statements of fact—not opinion—and are irrefutable. Everyone knows it except Howland.
let me get this straight.
of the four things you mentioned, 3 are opinions.
are yet you claim they're "statements of fact-not opinion."
okay then.
(by the way, an appeal to authority that uses beat writers, columnists, bloggers, and commentators is not actually a very good defense of your point)
Sorry, but those are most definitely opinions, with the exception of the foul-shooting. So I will refute them.
1. First of all, the high-screen and roll is an extremely effective offensive tactic when executed well. Hedging is one of the only ways to effectively defend against it. Hedging only happens in man-to-man defense. It happens when an attacking center comes out to set a screen for the pg. This creates space for the attacking PG. **If the defending center DOESN'T come out to help, you have one guy trying to defend 2 players, and the attacking PG will have an easy open shot, or be able to drive straight to the basket** "Hedging" the screen, is the defending Center coming out and forcing the PG to take a longer route around him, allowing the defending PG, who was just screened, time to recover and guard the attacking PG again. It's still 2 guys guarding 2 guys. The only way there's an easy layup is if the defending PG fails to take away the pass back to the big man and a weakside defender doesn't recognize and slide over to defend. Joshua Smith commits fouls when hedging because he is still out of shape, still doesn't have great footwork, and is, most important of all, still YOUNG and doesn't yet know how to hedge without taking a foul.
2. The timeout strategy makes perfect sense, especially with a young team. Ben Howland cannot see into the future and know that a game will be close down the stretch. What he CAN see is that an opposing team is making a run and that HIS team is losing composure. Call a timeout, stop the run, settle the team down, fix the problem. If Howland DIDN'T use his timeouts when he did, would the game even be close down the stretch? Or would UCLA be down by 15 because they couldn't slow down the other team and adjust?
3. This is the one you're most wrong about. Playing fast at the end of games gives more possessions to the team trying to get back into the game. Slowing things down reduces the number of times the trailing team gets the ball, thereby reducing the number of points they can score. If UCLA, in say, two possessions, uses up the entire 35 second shot clock before shooting, they have just taken over an entire minute off the game clock and given the opposing team 2 chances to score points. If UCLA plays fast and loose and shoots, say 15 seconds into the shot clock, well then in that same minute, they've given the other team 4 chances to score and catch up. You know the other team is going to shoot 3's, so unless you're hitting 3's yourself, the faster you play, the faster they can catch up.
4. Foul-shooting is entirely on the players. It's not Howland out there on the stripe. The players are the ones who need to handle the pressure and make clutch shots. There's no coaching that.