UCLA up 30-28 at the half over USC
The Bruins took their first lead late in the half and maintained a close advantage over USC, going into the half up two.
Reeves Nelson has been a force early, picking up 12 points with an array of deft inside moves. His touch has simply been on tonight.
However, he's the only Bruin with any offensive rhythm, as fellow starters Joshua Smith, Tyler Honeycutt, Malcolm Lee and Lazeric Jones have a combined 15 points at halftime.
USC's Nikola Vucevic has led the Trojans early with eight points, with Brendan Lane playing pretty good defense on him. Alex Stephenson has five points and six rebounds for USC.
The Bruins need to get Joshua Smith more involved in the second half and needs to avoid turnovers, as they had nine in the first 20 minutes.
By all means Honeycutt and Lee should declare for the NBA draft, they are obviously first rounders! Absolutely dominant tonight against a bunch of okey-doke college guys. They will really be fantastic against next year playing against pros. Can someone please wake me up from this nightmare? That was the worst I've seen yet.
After following this basketball program since 1966, Coach Howland needs to go. His teams play with no sense of urgency. Down by 6-8 with 4 minutes to go and his guards still continually walk the ball up the floor. Its as if he is protecting a lead. No defensive discipline whatsoever and still has yet to recruit guards the past few years who can defend. Continually not hustling for loose balls or even defensive rebounds. Plus, he cannot recruit anyone that can shoot the basketball. It's amazing how bad the outside shooting is not to mention freethrow percentage. I'm tired of hearing about number of players he has lost to the NBA. Yes, many fans will say, that he led the Bruins to 3 final fours. True. But, that was done on pure talent alone. Pure talent. When the final 4's came and he had to make adjustments, well, the final scores speak for themselves. The program will fall like our football program has unless something is done very, very quickly. All alumni should be angry with the direction he is taking the program.