With a couple of defenders between him and the basket on a late fast break, guard Russell Westbrook selflessly found teammate Darren Collison with a bounce pass. Collison in turn sent a pass right back to Westbrook, who finished with the layup.
The play prompted a big cheer from the crowd and gave the sophomore a new career high with 21 points on the night.
“I’m just playing,” Westbrook said. “(I’m) going out there, just trying to move without the ball, and fortunately I was just getting layups.”
Westbrook was able to get himself a number of high percentage shots and ended the day shooting 10-of-13 from the floor. He also had three assists.
The new scoring mark tops his previous best of 19, which he put up against George Washington on November 28th.
“Russ, he kept attacking,” forward Josh Shipp said. “He got those easy baskets, he hit his pull-ups. He definitely did a great job for us tonight.”
Westbrook got an early start to his big night, wasting no time opening the game’s scoring by taking the ball end-to-end for an easy bucket.
Saturday night was the second straight game Westbrook had started.
Westbrook was in the starting five against Arizona State on Thursday night, but coach Ben Howland noted after the win that Westbrook had started in that game for a specific matchup.
However, after the Bruins’ strong start against the Sun Devils, the game plan changed.
“That was the way I was thinking (to start Westbrook in just one game), but I rethought it,” Howland said. “The way we’ve started the last couple games has been very impressive, and so we’ll probably be starting this way now for Thursday.”
Westbrook moved to the sixth-man role not long after Collison’s return from injury. However, his contributions on both ends of the floor were too much of a spark to keep him on the bench, especially for a team that struggled with slow starts earlier in the season.
The change of having both Collison and Westbrook is very noticeable to the team.
“It’s a lot different (with Westbrook starting).” Collison said. “The work he’s been doing all season consistently locking down their best players, it changes up a whole lot. And then when you get out and push, it makes it easier on fast breaks.”
All season long it has been Westbrook’s task to match up against the opponent’s toughest offensive threat. Against Arizona State, Westbrook matched up against freshman standout James Harden, and against Arizona he squared off against freshman Jerryd Bayless. Bayless came into the weekend third in the Pac-10 in scoring, averaging 19.9 points per game. Westbrook held Bayless to a subpar 13 points in 38 minutes on the court.
“Westbrook was spectacular today at both ends of the floor,” Howland said. “He played great defense. He did a great job on Bayless.”
Scoring a career-high and locking down Bayless was quite a statement, but Westbrook said that it didn’t matter to him whether he started or came in off the bench.
Echoing the same team-first sentiment, when asked what his favorite part of his performance was, Westbrook’s answer was simple:
“That we won,” he said. “As long as we keep winning, I’m always happy.”