Monday, January 13, 1997
M. HOOPS:
Bruin victory saves road trip, despite sloppy startBy Emmanuelle
Ejercito
Daily Bruin Staff
DALY CITY, CA — Bouncing back from its most lopsided loss ever
two days earlier, the UCLA men’s basketball team overcame a three
point halftime deficit to leave the Bay Area on a positive note
with a win over California, 64-56 Saturday.
It was a far from a pretty victory, though. Both teams played a
sloppy game, with the Bruins racking up 23 turnovers while the
Golden Bears had 16. And neither team could find the basket, with
UCLA shooting 44.4 percent (38.5 in the first half) and Cal
connecting on 30.0 percent.
The difference for the Bruins was their second half performance,
their free throw shooting, and a slightly ailing but focused Kris
Johnson.
At the start of the game, it seemed as if the Bruins were still
stunned by the Stanford debacle. The first four UCLA possessions
ended in turnovers. But luckily for the Bruins (8-4 overall, 3-1
Pacific 10), they weren’t in Palo Alto anymore.
Instead, they were at the Cow Palace playing the Bears (10-5,
1-3), a team that felt compelled to give the ball back each time
UCLA turned it over.
"We had many opportunities to be up by a significant margin and
we didn’t manage that," Cal head coach Ben Braun said. "We just
didn’t take advantage of the opportunities early. In my mind we
should have been up by more than three at the half."
The second half saw a resurgence for UCLA. After being
outrebounded 45-26 at Stanford, UCLA outrebounded Cal 44-33 with
the help of Charles O’Bannon’s career-high 16 boards, including 13
after intermission. The Bruins also improved their shooting, making
50 percent from the field in the second half.
And while the Bears turned over the ball on successive
possessions to start the second half, UCLA tidied up its own
execution and took advantage of the free gifts. The Bruins took the
lead for the first time, 30-29, after an O’Bannon steal led to a
Jelani McCoy slam three-and-a-half minutes into the second
half.
"The way the players responded (Saturday) says so much about
their character," UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said. "The true test,
I think, and again (it) sounds corny and cliche, something they
would say on ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood’, but it
really is true, is not getting knocked down, but what you do once
you get knocked down, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and
keep working."
Led by Johnson, UCLA began to pull away with the game after a
9-2 run midway through the second half. Johnson, the leading scorer
for the Bruins with 21, tallied all nine points by making four
straight shots including a trey. Perhaps Johnson’s offensive
performance was a way to soothe the strained back he sustained in
practice the day before.
"I was just concentrating more, getting more into it mentally
than I have been for awhile," Johnson said. "It seems that whenever
I’m either sick or hurt I’m always kind of concentrating a lot more
on the game and I usually do pretty well."
When UCLA led by nine with a minute left in the game it looked
as if the game was in the bag. But Cal’s Ed Gray scored six of his
game-high 29 points by sinking three free throws and a three
pointer to give Cal a glimmer of hope, bringing the Bears within
four with 14 seconds remaining.
But the Bruins, who shot 83.3 percent from the line, connected
on all eight of their free throws in the last 25 seconds. Even
McCoy, notorious for his 28.3 percent free throw shooting, got into
the act by making both of his free throws in the waning seconds of
the game to seal the win.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Kris Johnson (#54) mystified Cal defender Alfred Grigsby,
scoring 21 points and salvaging a road trip that started with a
loss to Stanford.