SEATTLE ””mdash; The basketball game Saturday at Bank of America Arena felt like a fight. Big men for UCLA and Washington traded blows inside. Guards flew in from the perimeter and leaped fearlessly towards the hoop. Both teams looked poised for a dramatic finish.
Then the Bruins collapsed.
An 12-0 run in the final minutes served as a knockout punch for Washington (15-4, 6-1 Pac-10) at home over UCLA (15-4, 5-2 Pac-10). Washington guard Isaiah Thomas led the Huskies with 24 points, while senior wing Josh Shipp scored 25 for the Bruins.
And after the stinging, 86-75 defeat, the Bruins were left wondering why they have slipped in these battles so often this season.
“We just don’t have enough heart,” freshman forward Drew Gordon said. “We run our plays and we execute. We have good 3-point shooters and we’re good inside. But at the end of the day the other team just wants it more.”
If free throws are any indication, Washington’s ball handlers were simply more aggressive. The Huskies shot 43 free throws and drew 28 fouls against Bruin players, which led to 37 points, a substantial portion of their total.
UCLA shot only 15 free throws, but the Bruin players said they were trying to match Washington’s physicality.
“We were going in,” freshman guard Jrue Holiday said. “We were getting hit just like they were getting hit. I don’t know what else to say. We were doing the same thing they were doing.”
Shipp agreed.
“It’s tough; the game is called the way it is,” he said. “We felt like we were driving too, getting in there. We’re not going to complain about the call, but ““ they had a lot more free throws than us.”
The Huskies are not a great jump-shooting team, so they tend to rely on dribble penetration. Against the Bruins, they were able to penetrate easily, though, especially guards Justin Dentmon and Thomas, who combined to shoot 19-for-22 from the line.
“There’s no excuse for that,” UCLA senior point guard Darren Collison said.
Thomas, a freshman who stands just 5 feet 8 inches, sparked the Huskies in the second half, when he hit three crucial 3-pointers.
“The little guy had a great day,” coach Ben Howland said. “He was a real problem for us.”
Washington center Jon Brockman posed similar matchup problems for UCLA. The Bruin big men were in foul trouble for most of the game, and Alfred Aboya had to sit for one stretch after he was hit by Brockman and a cut opened on his forehead. While UCLA trainers tended to Aboya, Brockman scored six straight points. The burly senior finished with 18 points and eight rebounds. He also shot 10 free throws.
And as the Huskies began to assert themselves down the stretch, the Bruins lost focus.
Holiday and Collison committed costly turnovers. Forward Nikola Dragovic tried a difficult runner off a set play, when he could have stopped and drawn a foul. On another play, Aboya attempted an awkward jumpshot even though Dragovic stood open for a 3-pointer.
“To win against a really good team on the road, you have to capitalize on all the little things,” Howland said. The Bruins also struggled to execute their halfcourt offense against the rigorous pressure of the Husky defense. In the most important stretch of the game ““ those last six minutes ““ the struggles became most apparent. The Bruin offense stalled, and the Huskies raced to a big win.
After another poor finish, the Bruins noticed the pattern. They’ve fallen flat down the stretch in each of their four losses, against Michigan in November and Texas in December, last week at home against Arizona State, and here on Saturday. They nearly collapsed in similar fashion last Thursday at Washington State.
“We always let teams back in the game,” Holiday said. “I don’t know if it’s we feel comfortable with the lead and just back off or what. We just become stagnant. We don’t move. We don’t play the same way we do in the first half.”
UCLA now sits in a second-place tie in the Pac-10, and its NCAA tournament resume seems more mediocre than in any of the past three seasons.
“This game was a good wake-up call,” Gordon said. “I think we get too comfortable. We’re going on reputation. Everybody says, “˜We’re UCLA.’ … We’re not the UCLA team of last year, we’re the team of this year. This year, we can’t really sit back.”
Collison, the senior leader, said it simply.
“We got a lot of work to do.”