PALO ALTO “”mdash; Exceedingly patient and unselfish Thursday
night in Berkeley, UCLA reverted to an overanxious brand of offense
three days later against Stanford that proved to be its downfall.
The Bruins, desperate to overcome a 10-point halftime deficit and
stay within striking distance of the Cardinal in the race for third
place in the Pac-10, dealt with the urgency of the situation by
hoisting up contested shots from all over the floor. The result was
fairly predictable. UCLA missed nine of its first 10 second-half
attempts, helping Stanford seize control of the game by building a
commanding 62-40 lead. “Typically when we lose, we take a
number of bad shots,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said.
“When you take one-on-one shots, you’re not going to
beat a team that plays smart and plays good defense.”
UCLA’s two chief culprits were senior forward Dijon Thompson
and freshman point guard Jordan Farmar, who attempted a combined 36
shots, only making 12 of them. Farmar missed a pair of difficult
jumpers and committed three turnovers in the first 3:30 of the
second half. Thompson, too, looked to be off his game. As the Bruin
deficit continued to swell later in the half, the 6-foot-7-inch
forward looked to take over the game instead of taking what the
defense gave him, but he didn’t find his stroke until it was
too late. Twice Thompson missed fadeaway jumpers with a hand in his
face early in the shot clock, and another time he drove into
traffic but failed to hit the rim on his layup attempt. Though
Thompson finished with 19 points, all but six of them came after
Stanford had already opened up an 18-point lead. “I was
staying aggressive and kept trying to find my shot,” Thompson
said. “They sagged off me, and used bigs in the paint. I had
open shots and good looks, but they weren’t
falling.”
CAMEO APPEARANCE: Unable to call upon reserve forward Matt
McKinney, who came down with the flu over the weekend, Howland gave
little-used senior Josiah Johnson a chance to play for two short
first-half stints. Johnson played two minutes, collecting an
offensive rebound and two personal fouls. McKinney is not expected
to miss any practice time. “I just didn’t have
confidence he was ready to go today,” Howland said.
DRIBBLERS: Junior Michael Fey scored UCLA’s first seven
points of the game, but finished with nine points in 22 minutes …
Chris Hernandez’s 37 points were the most scored by a
Stanford player since Casey Jacobsen dropped 49 on Arizona State in
Jan. 2002 … The Bruins converted 18 of 19 free throw attempts …
Stanford’s Fred Washington swiped a game-high seven
steals.
Tip-off for the Oregon-UCLA game on March 5 at Pauley Pavilion
will be at 5 p.m. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Net.