After the first UCLA-USC matchup this season, the Trojans made me eat my words.
Now, after the Bruins’ 56-46 win at the Galen Center, ‘SC’s Davon Jefferson can see how his taste.
Before Sunday’s game, the freshman forward had a little trouble following Tim Floyd’s instructions not to give the Bruins any bulletin board material: He was a one-man trash-talking machine.
“I think we play better defense than them, and we have better big men,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I hope they come more physical, with better play. They’re bigger than us on the inside, so I hope they at least come with some kind of strength or physicalness or something. Tell them to come with something. I hope they come with something. No excuses, no concussions, none of that.”
His words rang hollow as his team not only lost, but Jefferson had one of his worst games of the season. He put up a grand total of four points, four rebounds and four turnovers. Even the Fox Sports commentators were getting on him after the game, calling him out for talking the talk but failing to even show up when it counted.
Jefferson’s pregame comments seemed to have struck a chord with the Bruins. They played with more emotion than usual, highlighted by a Josh Shipp dunk-and-glare in the first half. UCLA spent the whole week talking about how it was just another game they needed to win, but that’s not how they played. They came out to the Galen Center as if the Trojans had insulted each one of their mothers. They hit the floor for loose balls and out-hustled ‘SC as if they had a personal vendetta.
But they didn’t let their emotions get out of control. As opposed to taunting the student section and chucking the basketball into the rafters at the end of the game the way the Trojans did at Pauley last month, UCLA’s players kept themselves in check.
Nobody was even laughing at Jefferson and his embarrassing performance ““ maybe because the only player who overshadowed him was his teammate O.J. Mayo.
With Russell Westbrook on him the whole game like they were attached at the hip, Mayo floundered on offense. He scored a season-low four points on 2-of-8 shooting despite playing all 40 minutes. Westbrook continually denied him the ball, and when Mayo did get open for a pass, he was forced into bad decisions. He ended the night with 10 turnovers ““ the same number committed by all the Bruins combined.
With the game on the line in the final two minutes, the freshman phenom traveled twice on consecutive possessions, essentially icing the game for the Bruins.
In what shouldn’t be surprising at all, Westbrook again shut down one of the nation’s best players. Mayo’s game was reduced to jogging in figure eights around the court trying to find somewhere to spot up. Someone without any prior knowledge of college basketball would never have recognized Mayo as one of the most talented players in the country.
But when it’s on, that’s just what the Bruin defense can do. They just need to treat every game like a “yo momma” joke gone horribly wrong.
E-mail Feder at jfeder@media.ucla.edu
if you would’ve given Collison your shoes, too.