On a night when top-ranked teams succumbed to lesser opponents,
the UCLA men’s basketball team staved off the upset against
Delaware State.
In a game in which the Bruins’ bench nearly housed more
players in civilian clothes than in uniforms, UCLA coach Ben
Howland accomplished what he aimed for.
At Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night, with both No. 5 Michigan
State and No. 13 Stanford falling to unranked Hawaii and UC Irvine,
respectively, in their season openers, the 18th-ranked Bruins were
able to pull off a 56-37 victory over the Hornets (0-1) with
suffocating defense in the first half and timely shooting in the
second.
“It was a long week and I’m just glad we finished
the way we hoped to, which was 3-0,” said Howland, whose
Bruins played three games in the last five days.
UCLA senior guard Cedric Bozeman, who had a game-high 15 points
on 6-for-9 shooting from the field, said this stretch of games made
him feel like he was playing on a professional team. Because of
that, Howland told his players to stay away from the gym Sunday and
take the day off.
The Bruins will now travel to New York for Wednesday’s NIT
Season Tip-Off tournament semifinal against 12th-ranked Memphis.
The winner of that game will take on the victor of the Wednesday
match-up between Duke and Drexel.
Despite being shorthanded against the Hornets, with starting
point guard Jordan Farmar (sprained right ankle) and center Michael
Fey (sprained left shoulder) out, the Bruins were able to pull off
the win, giving Howland his 200th career coaching victory.
Though the milestone doesn’t stand out for a coach with a
resume that includes taking three different teams to the NCAA
Tournament and being named National Coach of the Year, Howland and
the Bruins did hold Delaware State to the fewest points at Pauley
Pavilion since Oregon State scored just 35 on Jan. 7, 1966.
“It’s nice (to get the 200th win),” Howland
said. “There’s so many players I’ve been involved
with. I feel everyone I’ve ever been involved with has been a
part of the success I’ve been able to have as a
coach.”
After the game, Howland said the team came out with the right
idea. The Bruins opened up a 13-0 lead that saw them outrebound,
outhustle and outshoot the Hornets. The quick start, however, was
in large part because the Hornets clanked their opening nine shots.
Delaware State didn’t hit its first bucket until 13:38, when
junior guard Jahsha Bluntt sank a 3-pointer.
Twelve first-half turnovers by UCLA allowed Delaware State to
crawl back into the game. During one stretch at the end of the
first half, the Bruins committed six turnovers in seven
possessions. Freshman Darren Collison, taking Farmar’s place
at guard in his first start as a Bruin, had three of his team-high
four turnovers in the first half.
“We were being careless with the ball,” Bozeman
said. “We can’t afford turnovers like that. At any
moment a team can come back and the tide can turn.”
In the second half, Bluntt’s hot shooting from beyond the
arc brought Delaware State to its smallest deficit, 32-26, with
13:43 remaining after draining one of his three 3-pointers. Bluntt
finished with a team-high 11 points.
“We had a letdown. Our offensive was so stagnant and so
out of sync we couldn’t get any real good touches,”
sophomore guard Arron Afflalo said. “The final score
doesn’t speak for how we beat those teams.”
Hot shooting from UCLA freshman guard Michael Roll, one of the
Bruins who has seen more playing time because of the rampant
injuries on the team, stretched UCLA’s lead late in the half.
Roll scored all nine of his points in the final 7:30, hitting all
three of his shots from 3-point range. Eighteen of UCLA’s
final 19 points came from 3-pointers.