Kiss, Kiss and a Bang, Bang Play

PULLMAN –
It was a jubilant scene for the UCLA basketball team after its 58-54 overtime win at Washington State on Saturday afternoon, a victory that locked up a second-place finish in the Pac-10 conference.

The locker room was raucous, a chorus of hoots and hollers, chairs crashing to the ground, the cacophony of noise audible far down the hall.

Before boarding the team bus that would take them to Spokane, the players tossed snowballs at each other.

Normally reserved head coach Ben Howland was all wide smiles, talking a mile a minute, clearly fired up after his team rebounded from a 15-point deficit, its biggest comeback of the season.

Howland even kissed a reporter on the forehead. Read that again.

It was quite a different scene at halftime.

A morgue, though that might be an affront to the grim reaper.

Washington State was down its two best players – Pac-10 leading scorer Klay Thompson suspended indefinitely after being caught with marijuana during a traffic stop on Thursday night; point guard Reggie Moore out with an ankle injury – and yet it managed a 32-19 lead at the half.

The Cougars, unveiling a variation of the Oregon offense and taking the Bruins by surprise with backdoor layup after backdoor layup, sprinted to the 26-13 lead, swallowing UCLA’s offense whole. The Bruins started two-for-12 from the field, finished the half seven-of-25 – including zero-for-eight from 3-point range – and the walk back to the locker room wasn’t a jaunt so much as a full-on sprint.

“It was one of those games where we weren’t prepared; they had just put in Oregon’s offense,” UCLA junior forward Tyler Honeycutt said. “Same thing with Cal – we weren’t able to adapt. We just wanted to get out of the first half and be able to come into the locker room and talk about it.”

Howland’s halftime speech must have been a dandy.

Reverting back to the inside-outside game that has served the team well during a 13-3 regular-season finish, UCLA tied the game at 35 on a Honeycutt 3-pointer with just more than 12 minutes left in regulation. Every other basket during the 16-3 run was either a dunk or a layup, though, the Bruins finally finding Reeves Nelson, the bread, and Joshua Smith, the 6-foot-10, 300-plus butterball.

Nelson had a game-high 23 points, including 11 in the second half, and Smith finished with 10 and added five rebounds and three blocks.

“We didn’t attack the zone well at all in the first half,” Howland said. “They came out in man and we missed some open shots too in the first half. About everything that could go wrong was going wrong for us. When we got stops in the second half, we were able to fast break out of those stops. That was the key thing for us, the ability to fast-break by getting stops at the other end.”

Ultimately, it was two crucial stops at the end of the game that lifted the Bruins (22-9, 13-5) over Washington State (19-11, 9-9).

After an early UCLA five-point lead in overtime dissipated, Cougar guard Faizel Aden tying the game at 54 on a 3-pointer with one minute, 21 seconds left, the two teams could not manufacture a point for more than a minute.

But with nine seconds left, Honeycutt forced a turnover by Washington State’s Brock Motum, the ball bouncing to Nelson for the steal and advanced to junior guard Malcolm Lee, who was fouled and hit both free throws to give UCLA the 56-54 lead.

Then Cougar forward Abe Lodwick corralled and inbounded the ball with six seconds left to guard Marcus Capers, but Bruin point guard Jerime Anderson cut in front and deflected the ball off Capers. UCLA got the ball to Lee once more on the inbound pass, he was fouled and once more hit two free throws, finishing seven-for-seven from the line for the day, as he also hit two free throws with eight seconds left in regulation and the Bruins down 48-46, sending the game into overtime.

“I wanted the ball in that situation,” said Lee, who scored 11 points but suffered a knee injury that will require an MRI today when the team arrives back from Washington. “I knew I could knock them down. I was just focused on making the first one and then getting into a rhythm. I didn’t even hear the crowd.”

The Bruins certainly heard it early from a loud Beasley Coliseum audience that served as sixth man – and maybe seventh – with Thompson and Moore out. When Thompson addressed the crowd after introductions to apologize for his indiscretion, they screamed words of support. When the Cougars harassed the Bruins early, they screeched. When Aden hit his game-tying 3-pointer, they exploded.

By the time Lee hit his four clutch free throws, they were silent, a fan walking by press row exclaiming, “I’m so sad right now.”

And then there was UCLA, and Howland, happier than ever.

“I’ve seen him excited, but I’ve never seen him that excited,” Smith said. “It’s just the emotion of the game. How the game went, how we fought back took it to overtime, dominated the first three minutes, they came back and we just prevailed.”

But he kissed a reporter…

“That’s a first,” Smith laughed. “I’ve never seen that.”