M. hoops beats Arizona State Bruins dominate Sun Devils on
boards, McCoy makes strong offensive performance
By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Staff
TEMPE, Ariz. — The UCLA men’s basketball team continued its
tear through the early part of its conference schedule Thursday,
earning an 87-73 victory over an overmatched, undersized Arizona
State team at the University Activity Center.
The Bruins, who entered the contest with the Pacific 10
Conference’s best rebounding margin, once again dominated their
opponent on the boards, finishing with a 45-35 rebounding
advantage. That, combined with a strong offensive performance by
freshman center Jelani McCoy and the Sun Devils’ anemic 36.7 field
goal percentage, proved to be the ultimate differnece in the
game.
"There’s no question that they have a great inside game, and
that’s where our weakness is," Arizona State head coach Bill
Frieder said. "McCoy was one of the big differences alone – his
stats were probably 10 times the stats of our whole front
line."
Not exactly, but McCoy did record his fourth double-double of
the season with 10 rebounds and 21 points, and it was his
thunderous dunk that sparked UCLA on its first serious run with
about 12 minutes left in the first half.
The Bruins (12-3 overall, 5-0 Pacific 10) had gotten off to a
slow start, and a layin by ASU’s Quincy Brewer had brought the Sun
Devils’ deficit down to two at 15-13. But McCoy took a nice pass
from Cameron Dollar and jammed it home the ensuing possession, and
UCLA ran off ten unanswered points, the last two of which came on a
Dollar-assisted dunk by J.R. Henderson.
The lead was methodically extended over the next few minutes,
and it reached its maximum when a Kris Johnson layin put the Bruins
up, 40-24, with about three minutes left in the half.
"You just have to play better when you’re struggling like we
are," Frieder said. "I thought our kids did play harder, I thought
we played together, I thought we did not quit, and yet we just
never seemed to get over the hump.
"Any time they needed to get baskets, they seemed to get them,
and any time we needed to get a stop or a big basket, we fell
short."
Literally.
With his team leading by 16 points, UCLA forward Charles
O’Bannon threw a lazy pass that was intercepted by ASU’s Jeremy
Veal. Driving down court with nobody between him and the basket,
Veal went up for a one-handed dunk, only to miscalculate his jump,
get the ball hung up on the rim, and miss.
But the Sun Devils refused to fold, closing the half with eight
unanswered points and entering the locker room with a single-digit
deficit. Senior Ron Riley, who finished with eight rebounds and a
game-high 29 points, led the run with a pair of free throws and
then a three-pointer with about three seconds left.
"I was happy with our game until three minutes to go in the
first half," UCLA head coach Jim Harrick said. "I remember a year
ago, we had the kind of team that would put a team away, and we
can’t do that – we’re not that good at this time. We throw the ball
away."
Arizona State cut the lead to seven on a three-pointer by Duane
Davis five minutes into the second half, but Toby Bailey answered
with one of his two three-pointers, starting the Bruins on another
10-0 scoring run, six points of which were scored by McCoy.
About the only thing that kept Arizona State in the game were
three consecutive three-pointers by Veal, who finished with 26
points and eight rebounds.
The two teams combined for 47 fouls, and 15 of UCLA’s final 17
points came from the line, where they shot 71.4 percent on the
night. From the field, the Bruins shot 50 percent, and they had 20
assists to go along with their 18 turnovers.
"I thought we did what we had to do, and certainly Jelani was
strong and we got a lot of things inside," Harrick said. "Our goals
and objectives are to shoot 50 percent and get 20 assists, and we
did those, but we turned the ball over five or six times too many
and we just could never get away from them.
"It was an interesting game, but it’s nice to get a win in
here."
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Freshman center Jelani McCoy scored a team-high 21 points
against Arizona State Thursday night in Tempe.