SACRAMENTO “”mdash; With a minute and 45 seconds left and the Bruins’ lead down to two, junior Arron Afflalo was 2-for-11 from the field with six points.
Yet, with the Bruins’ season on the line, there was no one who wanted the ball more.
Over the final two minutes, Afflalo took the game on his shoulders with two consecutive drives to the basket.
Both times, he was fouled and, both times, he made both free throws.
“When I am not shooting well, it doesn’t mean I can’t be there for my teammates in the end,” Afflalo said. “My teammates expect a certain consistency from me, and I have to fulfill my end of the bargain.”
Saturday was Afflalo’s third subpar performance in his last four games, but unlike the two other games, Afflalo wasn’t going to let his team lose on Saturday.
That’s what makes Afflalo special among all the other Bruin players.
“He made all the plays in the end,” coach Ben Howland said. “If we go down, it’s going to be with him at the helm.”
“This thing goes as far as he takes the team and he knows that,” sophomore Alfred Aboya said. “That was the mindset the last minute of the game.”
When Afflalo wasn’t scoring on Saturday, he was playing his usual superior defense on the Hoosiers’ Roderick Wilmont, who was held to eight points on 3-of-10 shooting.
Afflalo and the Bruins, in fact, held the Hoosiers to an astounding 32.7 percent field goal shooting, including 17 percent in the first half.
“If my shot goes down, I can’t let it affect the other parts of my game,” Afflalo said. “That happened during the Cal game, and it can’t happen again.”
In the long term, however, Afflalo’s shooting could prove to be a potential problem for the Bruins.
On Saturday, Afflalo was 0-for-3 from the 3-point line, and he missed easy mid-range jumpers and layups that the team captain is usually automatic with.
“When you’re missing shots, you are a little hesitant,” Afflalo said. “That’s why I made sure I drove to the basket (at the end), and get either fouled or make a play.
“I didn’t want to settle for an outside shot with the whole season on the line.”
When the Bruins and Afflalo face Pitt on Thursday, they will need those plays earlier in the game from Afflalo, because it’s unlikely the Bruins will hold a team to 13 first-half points again.
“Hopefully, our offense will be more smooth, and I will have a better shooting night,” Afflalo said.
PITT NEXT: With the Bruins and Panthers winning on Saturday, the Sweet 16 sets up a dream matchup for Bruins’ coach Ben Howland.
Howland coached at Pitt for four years, and his daughter currently is a Pitt student. Pitt’s coach, Jamie Dixon, is one of Howland’s best friends and his former assistant coach at Pitt.
“I’m happy (to face Pitt), because they won two, and we won two,” Howland said. “If I had to lose to anyone in the world, it would be Jamie Dixon and the Pittsburgh Panthers.
“But that’s not the mindset we are going in with. We expect to win the game, but it’s going to be tough. The only team (we’ve faced this season) with the same physicality as a Pitt team is Texas A & M.”
WESTBROOK: With the first half moving at a leisurely pace and the crowd being lulled to sleep, freshman Russell Westbrook provided one of the few exciting moments of the first half with a thunderous dunk over Indiana’s Earl Calloway.
“(The dunk) just let them know that we’re here,” Westbrook said. “I happened to get the steal, and we really needed a basket.”
SCOREKEEPER ERROR: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute was incorrectly charged with a personal foul at the end of the first half, and UCLA’s scorekeeper did not notice it.
Coach Howland tried to notify the NCAA scorekeeper after the foul was incorrectly charged, but to no avail.
“That can’t happen,” Howland said. “That’s why UCLA has an official scorekeeper. He has the best seat in the house.”
FREE-THROW SHOOTING: With the game going down to the wire on Saturday, the game came down to free-throw shooting. The advantage surprisingly went to the Bruins.
UCLA hit 18-of-24 from the line, including 9-of-10 in the final two minutes of the game.
Indiana, meanwhile, struggled from the line, hitting 10-of-21. Senior guard Earl Calloway, a 85 percent free-throw shooter this season, hit a subpar 3-of-7, while D.J. White was only 4-of-7.
“At the end of the day, the difference was the free-throw line ““ that’s a big deal in a game,” Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson said.
“UCLA made theirs, give them credit; we didn’t make ours.”