BERKELEY “”mdash; On the final day of February, UCLA started to play its March brand of basketball.
The Bruins played a savvy second half and senior guard Darren Collison performed flawlessly down the stretch to help the team clinch a 72-68 win over California in front of 11,877 fans at Haas Pavilion Saturday evening. The Bears played well in the first half and built a seven-point lead, but the Bruins battled back and then pulled away in the final 10 minutes of the second half. Collison scored 22 points for UCLA, while guard Jerome Randle led Cal with 20 points. The win puts No. 22 UCLA (22-7, 11-5 Pac-10) in sole possession of second place in the Pac-10 with just one week left in the regular season.
“That was a spectacular win,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “That’s probably our best win of the year.”
Cal (21-8, 10-6 Pac-10) clung to a four-point advantage with 10 minutes remaining in the game before the Bruins’ found their shooting stroke. Junior forward Nikola Dragovic ““ who was sick all day Friday ““ nailed two 3-pointers and Collison scored five points of his own as the Bruins completed a 15-2 run and pushed their lead to 64-55 with 5:31 remaining.
Howland said he knew that his team would find its shooting touch even after they shot just 38 percent from the field in the first half; he was more worried about stopping Cal’s trio of scorers, Randle, guard Patrick Christopher and forward Theo Robertson.
“We’re a good shooting team,” Howland said. “The whole thing for us is trying to defend, that’s where we’ve been failing to live up to what we expect.”
But in the second half Saturday UCLA was able to clamp down. Cal made only 25 percent of its 3-point tries in the second half and committed 14 turnovers in the game. The Bears typically screen for Christopher, who had a career-high 29 points against USC. But UCLA’s freshman guard Jrue Holiday found a way to stick with Christopher in the closing minutes and limited him to just five second-half points. And then there was the stat which most pleased Howland: UCLA players dove for loose balls 11 times in the game.
“We’re definitely coming together and I can feel that,” senior forward Alfred Aboya said. “Taking the court tonight, I felt the energy.”
One bizarre play turned the tide in the first half when the Bruins trailed. Cal’s Robertson was whistled for an intentional foul after he tried to keep Dragovic from hitting a wide-open layup. Dragovic still made the shot, and officials called an intentional foul on Robertson. Dragovic sank both his free-throw tries, and UCLA maintained possession. UCLA guard Michael Roll nailed a three-pointer on the next play to complete an unusual, seven-point possession for the Bruins. In 23 seconds Cal’s 28-23 lead turned into a 30-28 deficit.
“It was really discouraging,” Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. “I’m not saying it was the wrong call; it’s just hard to take.”
Howland thought it was the right call.
“You can’t grab the guy, and that’s what they did,” he said. “You have to make a play on the ball.”
The big swing didn’t immediately crush Cal, though, as Robertson scored eight quick points at the start of the second half and the Bears regained the lead 46-41. But the Bears could not stop Collison’s penetration. The senior, playing in his final Pac-10 road game, scored 16 points in the second half despite Randle’s relentless defense.
“That’s leadership right there,” Aboya said. “He knew he would have to make plays for us to win because they were playing so aggressive.”
Collison said it was the loudest and most intense environment the team has faced since a Dec. 4 trip to Austin, Texas.
“We got the victory done, on national television, with a very good crowd against a very good Cal team,” Collison said.
UCLA players were elated. They had lost games in the final minutes several times this season, and they had not completed a Pac-10 road trip sweep since the very first week of the conference season in Oregon.
“What this game showed me tonight is that we learned from it,” Aboya said. “We learned from the mistakes that we made in the past, and that just shows how much we improved.”
And if Aboya’s right, the improvement has come at the perfect time.