This time, no late-game heroics were necessary.
The top-seeded UCLA men’s basketball team relied on accurate outside shooting ““ led by 19 points from Darren Collison and 18 from Josh Shipp ““ and tough defense to bury California, 88-66, in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 Tournament.
The win advances the Bruins (29-3, 16-2 Pac-10) to the semifinals, where they will play fourth-seeded USC. The Trojans defeated Arizona State 59-55 in an earlier quarterfinal matchup. Game time is set for 6 p.m. Friday.
Thursday’s game at Staples Center was in stark contrast to last Saturday’s contest at Pauley Pavilion, in which Cal (16-15, 6-12) led almost the entire way until Josh Shipp won the game for UCLA with a controversial buzzer-beater that appeared to cross over the corner of the backboard.
This time the Bruins left no room for debate, breaking the game open with a late first-half run that gave them a 14-point halftime lead.
“The last time we played Cal, we didn’t play nearly as well as we should have played,” Collison said. “This was more about us, the preparation for us, everything about us just going out there and playing hard as a team.”
The ninth-seeded Golden Bears had earned a rematch with the Bruins by coming back from a 12-point second-half deficit to defeat eighth-seeded Washington, 84-81, in a play-in game Wednesday night. Cal was able to carry over enough of that momentum to hang with the Bruins for much of the first half and trailed by only two with just over six minutes to play before halftime.
But the Bruins’ defense clamped down, spurring UCLA to a 15-2 run from which Cal would never recover.
“I thought we played great defense tonight,” coach Ben Howland said. “We had really good execution going into the half. But we knew they could come back ““ we knew they had just done it to Washington yesterday.”
The Bruins’ outside shooting was hot all afternoon ““ UCLA shot 14 of 25 from beyond the arc as a team ““ and early in the second half, center Kevin Love helped end any hopes Cal might have had for another comeback.
Love, who had drained a crucial 3-pointer in the closing seconds of last Saturday’s game and had sat out much of the first half today because of foul trouble, made three straight 3-point shots in the opening two minutes of the second half, building the Bruins’ lead to 19.
“(Love) came out in the second half and played great for us, both on the glass and hitting those three 3s in a row,” Howland said.
UCLA’s defense also played better than it had the last time against Cal. The Bruins had 12 steals as a team, forced 18 turnovers ““ 13 of them in the first half ““ and Lorenzo Mata-Real contributed 4 blocks off the bench.
The lopsided score also allowed Howland to play mostly reserves late in the second half, which meant crucial minutes of rest for his starters.
The Bruins now look ahead to one more game against their crosstown rivals. UCLA and USC split their season series, with each team winning on the road.
While the Bruins’ win over Cal likely strengthened their claim to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, for now the team doesn’t seem interested in looking beyond the next game.
“It’s going to definitely be a battle out there,” Shipp said. “We’re healthy, (USC is) healthy. (The game’s) definitely going to go to the team who comes out and plays the hardest and is mentally ready.”