Senior forward Josh Shipp made sure to make his final game at Pauley Pavilion a memorable one.
After being honored in a pregame ceremony along with fellow seniors Darren Collison, Alfred Aboya and walk-on Jamie Diefenbach, Shipp scored a career-high 28 points in the UCLA men’s basketball team’s 94-68 victory over the Oregon Ducks in the regular season finale.
With the victory, the No. 20 Bruins (24-7, 13-5 Pac-10) kept hopes alive for a share of the Pac-10 title with the Washington Huskies. Yet two hours later, Washington defeated Washington State 67-60 to claim the program’s first outright conference title since 1953, leaving the Bruins in second place.
After their game, Bruin players admitted that their singular focus was on the Pac-10 Tournament next week, not the game up in Seattle. When asked if he was going to watch the game between the Huskies and the Cougars, Shipp responded simply: “Probably not. I’m probably going to take a nap. I’m a little tired.”
It has been a tiring past few games for Shipp. During the Bruins’ current four-game winning streak, Shipp is averaging 22.7 points per game, including a then-career-high 27 points in the Bruins’ 79-54 win over Oregon State on Thursday. Shipp said the biggest reason for the recent offensive outburst is a newfound sense of aggressiveness.
“When I see my opportunity, I’m attacking now,” Shipp said. “I think I wasn’t doing that earlier on; I was a little bit tentative. But now I’m just having fun out there. I’m just playing like me, just back to my old self.”
Aboya said that the games are not the only time when Shipp shows a great ability to score.
“The game is just the finished product of what is happening in practice,” said Aboya, who finished with 10 points in his final game at Pauley Pavilion. “In practice he’s been on fire, if I can use that expression. … He’s practicing well, he’s shooting the ball well, and I’m just glad that he’s able to carry what he’s doing in practice to the game and that really facilitates our offense and the way we play.”
The Bruins and the Pauley Pavilion crowd experienced a nerve-wracking moment midway through the second half. With 12:50 left in the game, Collison drove the lane for a layup and was met in the air by Oregon’s Matthew Humphrey. While the layup was good, Collison fell to the ground hard, landing squarely on his tailbone. He immediately clutched his backside in pain with visible discomfort, staying on the ground for several seconds before getting up under his own power. He made the free throw and left the game with 12:13 left in the game, finishing with 19 points.
Collison was diagnosed with a bruised tailbone and was taken to the hospital for an MRI after the game, but results were negative. Aboya said he was not concerned about the injury and expects Collison to play Thursday in the Pac-10 Tournament.
“I would be concerned if he was helped out of court, but he stood up under his own power,” Aboya said. “That means it’s not as serious as I would anticipate.”
Oregon freshman forward Drew Wiley led his team with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting, all from beyond the 3-point line.
“He made his first couple and then he felt it the rest of the way,” said UCLA coach Ben Howland, who added that he was aware of Wiley’s ability to score from 3-point and tried to emphasize it through the week.
It was that hot 3-point shooting that kept the Ducks (8-22, 2-16 Pac-10) in the game in the first half as Oregon made nine 3-pointers in the half. A Wiley 3-pointer gave the Ducks a five point lead, 37-32, with 5:08 left in the first half. Yet the Bruins would go on a 15-3 run to head into halftime with a 47-40 lead.
While the Ducks would close the Bruin lead to as few as four points, UCLA closed the game strong, pushing the lead to as much as 30 and ending the regular season on a high note.
“Guys were having fun today,” Howland said.
For the Bruins, the attention now shifts to the Pac-10 Tournament at the Staples Center, where they will face either seventh-seed WSU or No. 10 Oregon on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Should the Bruins win, they would face the winner of California v. USC on Friday at 8:30 p.m. The final game is on Saturday at 3 p.m.
“We know that every game from here on out is sudden death,” Howland said. “The first tournament’s the Pac-10; if you lose, you’re done. And then obviously there’s the NCAA Tournament. It’s a whole new season starting on Thursday night.”