Hoopsters send Huskies howling, 75-57
UCLA overcomes a sloppy first half on strength of C. O’Bannon’s
double-double
By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In what has become a disturbing trend through the early part of
the conference season, the sixth-ranked UCLA men’s basketball team
was forced to overcome a shoddy first-half performance en route to
victory, this time a 75-57win over Washington Thursday night at
Pauley Pavilion.
The Bruins (8-1 overall, 2-1 in the Pacific-10) shot a
horrendous 33 percent from the field in the first period while
committing 12 turnovers and making five of eight free throws.
"This was a game of halves, to say the least," UCLA head coach
Jim Harrick said. "We were not real sharp in the first half, but we
played decently in the second."
Lucky for UCLA, the Huskies (4-7, 0-3) were even worse in the
first half, connecting on just 10 of their 27 shots and turning the
ball over 13 times.
"We’re definitely in a shooting slump, and you can’t
characterize it any other way," Washington head coach Bob Bender
said. "I don’t know that it’s an issue of us taking poor shots
 we do take some quick shots  but we’re just not
converting. We can’t get the ball to go in the basket."
Still, Washington held a 16-10 advantage after converting an Ed
O’Bannon technical into four points with less than 14 minutes
remaining in the half.
O’Bannon, who finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, had
grabbed a defensive board and was slapped by Washington’s Mark
Sanford before he could dish to Tyus Edney. Much o’ the crowd of
10,112 heard the slap, but O’Bannon didn’t get the call and was
given the technical for voicing his complaint.
Frustrated with the performance of his first-stringers, Harrick
put the squad of Cameron Dollar, J.R. Henderson, Kris Johnson, Toby
Bailey and omm’A Givens on the floor, and neither team scored for
the next five minutes.
"I don’t like to play all four of the freshmen together, but I
had an opportunity to do that tonight," Harrick said. "I was really
upset with our guys, so I took all of them out. I wouldn’t normally
do that, but we were just really awful at first."
Bailey finally broke the silence at the 8:43 mark with a three-
pointer from the right corner, and UCLA went on a 10-0 run that
left the score in their favor, 20-16.
Edney, who finished with 14 points, six rebounds and four
assists, accounted for the last five points of the 10-point run,
but it was Charles O’Bannon that led the Bruins on a second-half
romp.
The sophomore forward scored twelve of his game-high 18 points
in the second period, and, on the game, grabbed 10 rebounds.
"Things were opening up for me tonight, and Tyus and all the
other guys gave me great passes for easy shots," Charles O’Bannon
said. "It’s no different than any other game. It happens to other
players on other nights, and I was just in the right spot at the
right times."
O’Bannon scored the first four of the Bruins’ second-half
points, and, after a three-point play by Edney, assisted Ed
O’Bannon on two baskets that started a 13-0 UCLA run. That run left
the score at 48-31 with 13:20 remaining, and Washington never got
closer than 13 points.
As a team in the second half, the Bruins shot 61 percent from
the field, were eight of nine from the foul line and committed just
eight turnovers. Washington, on the other hand, finished the game
with a 33.8 shooting percentage, including a 1-for-22 clip from
behind the three point line.
"We definitely weren’t playing UCLA basketball in the first
half," Charles O’Bannon said. "But we dug down in the second half
and started playing a little defense, started to get some stops,
rebounds and easy buckets on the other end."