Perhaps the finest illustration of the kind of afternoon UCLA had on Saturday afternoon against Cal: Middway through the second half, Bears senior guard Jorge Gutierrez missed a shot, backup forward Roberth Thurman grabbed the rebound, missed the ship shot, grabbed the rebound and awkwardly laid the ball in the hoop while drawing a foul and falling to the floor.
The basket capped off a brilliant start for Cal to start the second half and the Bears snapped UCLA’s 12-game conference home winning streak with a 73-64 win in front of 9,001 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.
When the two teams met on New Year’s Eve, Cal sprinted away from the Bruins with a 24-6 run to open the second half and eventually whisked UCLA away with a 16-point victory.
Call this Deja Blue.
After Bruins point guard Jerime Anderson hit a 3-pointer just before halftime to cut the Bears’ lead to 32-26, UCLA was feeling pretty good heading into the locker room. Two quick Cal baskets, and the Bruins started to reel. The Bears eventually got off to a 23-13 run to start the second half and kept UCLA at a comfortable distance for much of the duration.
“They just went on that run and it was tough,” sophomore forward David Wear said. “At halftime we’d talked about coming out strong and not letting them jump out on us like they did last time.”
The only thing time this time around, the Bruins showed a little moxie in clawing their way back. After falling behind by as much as 17 midway through the half, UCLA went on a run to make it a seven-point game with 3:15 left.
But just as the Bruins had to hurry to catch up, it was that speed that cut their comeback short. Anderson had two crucial turnovers down the stretch and Cal responded to every one of UCLA’s late charges.
“We had some turnovers at the end and they capitalized on them,” senior guard Lazeric Jones said. “That was pretty much it. We got it real close but we have to keep our composure.”
The last time the Bears swept the season series with UCLA, Jason Kidd ran the point to near-perfection. Flash forward 18 years, and Jorge Gutierrez and Justin Cobbs are handling the position with efficiency. The two combined for 31 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, with Cobbs leading both teams with 18 points.
Working well off of screens, Cal guards typically found themselves with a little extra cushion, and they made the Bruins pay.
“They were really running the pick-and-roll really well,” Jones said. “It seemed like the play they were trying to go to. When you’re on a roll like that, momentum is on their side.”
While the Bears were dishing and dancing and diving, UCLA failed to register even one assist in the first half. The Bruins shot 34.5 percent in the first half, missing a number of chip shots, and shot 1-for-7 from 3-point range.
“What really hurt us, the first half we had a lot of open jump shots we missed,” UCLA head coach Ben Howland said. “Easy shots, layups we missed. Both of their big guys were in foul trouble and they were playing with two backups and we couldn’t exploit that well enough. We had some open looks on some passes we just missed.”