It was Josh Shipp’s night.
After Stanford’s Brook Lopez got a bucket on one end to bring his team within four, Shipp immediately came back with a 3-pointer to put UCLA up by seven.
The clutch shot was part of a UCLA run that took a neck-and-neck contest and turned it into a solid 76-67 victory over No. 24 Stanford (11-2, 0-1 Pac-10) to open Pac-10 play.
“It’s the start of the Pac-10 season,” Shipp said. “I wanted to come out aggressive in this game and make a statement.”
He did just that.
The junior led No. 5 UCLA (13-1, 1-0 Pac-10) with a game-high 21 points, going 5-for-8 from beyond the arc and 7-for-13 from the floor.
“I’ve never seen Josh Shipp so ready to play the game as he was today,” coach Ben Howland said. “Never. His eyes were incredible, you can tell. He had a special gleam in his eye I’ve never seen before.”
The Bruins spread around the scoring as well, with guard Russell Westbrook and center Kevin Love contributing 15 points each.
Thursday’s game was statistically uncharacteristic for the Bruins. Going up against the tough Lopez twins, Brook and Robin, Howland’s team was out-rebounded 35-31.
Still, it was the Bruins who had the last laugh inside, with both Lopez twins getting four fouls with significant time left, and eventually fouling out.
From the tip, it appeared UCLA was going to take another early-game nose dive that it would have to climb out of. After sloppy play in the early going, Stanford jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead that galvanized the Maples Pavilion crowd.
Howland responded with an early timeout. The Bruins came right back with Love getting back-to-back buckets.
“The purpose of the timeout was to break the run, break the momentum, settle us down,” Howland said. “We had two turnovers in our first three possessions.”
For the rest of the first half the teams exchanged small leads, with neither team able to get much separation. The Bruins went into halftime with a 35-34 lead, and would begin the second half by trading the lead back and forth with the Cardinal.
Six plays in a row resulted in lead changes, setting the stage for what appeared to be a game that would come down to the last shot.
Instead, the Bruins pulled together and went on a run to seal the game with a lot of time still remaining.
“We definitely wanted to make the run,” Shipp said. “So the guys in the huddle, we just came together and said, “˜We just have to do whatever it takes to get this run and not have it be a last-second shot.'”
As well as Shipp played on the outside, the Bruins got a lot of help from Love on the inside. In one of his tougher assignments so far, the freshman was able to give the Lopez twins a lot of trouble, keeping Brook Lopez from getting easy looks. Brook had been averaging 19.3 points a game but was held to only 13 against the Bruins.
“Those two Lopez twins, none of us in this room can truly imagine how strong and big and physical that war is in inside,” Howland said. “It is a war in there with those bodies. I’m very proud of our team the way we showed toughness tonight.”
Getting to the Lopez twins was a big part of the Bruins’ success. Trailing late, the Cardinal had to fight the added hurdle of having both big men in foul trouble.
For Love, battling against the Lopez twins was both a big test and a success.
“The Lopez twins are probably going to be first-round lottery picks either this year or next year, so I wanted to prove to myself, to my team and to everybody else that I could step up and play defense against those guys,” Love said. “I think I did a pretty good job.”
Besides starting out the Pac-10 season well, the victory was also revenge for the Bruin players who remember the loss at Stanford a year ago.
Leading by 17 points, the Bruins watched the Cardinal climb back up and hand them a frustrating loss, one of their few on the year.
In preparation for Thursday’s contest, the team watched video of last year’s meeting.
“We looked at that tape and we definitely wanted to use that as motivation and come out and not let that happen this year,” Shipp said.
UCLA continues Pac-10 play at California on Saturday with tip-off slated for 3 p.m.