PALO ALTO “”mdash; Just in case Stanford guard Jeremy Green needed a heat check near the end of the first half, he decided to take a shot that would remove any doubt about how well he was shooting.
After UCLA guard Michael Roll hit a 3-pointer to put the Bruins up by one with 12 seconds left, Green brought the ball up the court, drove past UCLA’s Brendan Lane, and shot the ball over the out-stretched arms of UCLA’s Jerime Anderson just past the half-court line.
Shot good, Stanford up by one, and Green let all of the 6,946 in attendance at Maples Pavilion know just what kind of a day it was going to be for the sophomore from Austin, Texas.
Green’s half-court bank shot was just three of the career-high 30 points he scored in Stanford’s 70-59 win over the UCLA men’s basketball team (7-9, 2-2 Pac-10) on Saturday. Green shot an excellent 11-of-18 from the field, including five-of-eight from 3-point territory.
Green’s performance elicited a number of short, simple explanations by the Bruin players.
Said freshman forward Reeves Nelson: “That one guy couldn’t miss.”
Said sophomore guard Malcolm Lee: “He was hot.”
At least one of his Stanford (8-7, 2-1) teammates, forward Jack Trotter, was a bit more descriptive in his analysis of the shooting performance Green displayed on Saturday afternoon.
“That was just a huge performance by a great player,” Trotter said. “He’s come into his own. Any game he plays in he’s going to be one of our go-to guys.”
Green, who came into the game averaging 16.7 points per game, was one of the Stanford players whom the Bruins focused on heading into the game. The other player was senior Landry Fields.
While the Bruins were able to limit Fields to 16 points, below his season average of 22.5 points per game heading into the game, the same could not be said of the team’s job on stopping Green.
“They’re both very good,” UCLA senior guard Roll said of Green and Fields. “We just did a very poor job on Green.”
Green credited his teammates’ ability in finding him with open looks at the basket as to why he was able to post a career high in points.
As for the shot at the end of the first half?
“When it left my hands I kind of felt like it was going in, not off the glass, but I did feel it was a big momentum swing.”
HOWLAND SPEAKS ON THE BRUINS’ EXPECTATIONS: Sitting in a folding chair with reporters circled around him in an empty locker room in Maples Pavilion, UCLA coach Ben Howland gave his most candid comments about his young team this season.
Having just suffered a 70-59 loss to Stanford that dropped UCLA’s overall record to 7-9 and its Pac-10 record to 2-2, Howland gave his assessment on what lies ahead for the Bruins this season.
“The bottom line is that, for us to get into the NCAA Tournament, the only chance is to win the Pac-10 Tournament title,” Howland said. “For us to do that, we got to make sure you finish in the top six.”
Howland said that a team forced to play up to four games in four days to win the conference tournament would be a difficult task to fulfill, citing Syracuse’s dramatic run to the Big East Tournament title in 2006 as an extreme case of what could happen. Seeded No. 9 in the tournament, Syracuse became the lowest seeded team to win the Big East Tournament title.
For Howland, he and the Bruins are focused on smaller goals for what has been a trying season thus far.
“We want a winning record,” Howland said. “That’s definitely a goal, and we’re now two down. We had a chance to even it up today, had a chance to even it up last Saturday.”
NELSON CALLED FOR A CONTACT-TECHNICAL FOUL: With just under a minute remaining in the game and the Bruins down by 10, Nelson fouled out of the game after fouling Stanford’s Andrew Zimmerman.
Yet the game was delayed for about five minutes as the referees discussed what exactly to call the foul committed by Nelson. After some deliberation, it was determined that Nelson committed a contact-technical foul and that Zimmerman would shoot two additional free throws to the free throws awarded due to the foul.
When asked about the situation, Nelson was initially coy with reporters.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
After some prodding, Nelson elaborated.
“I was just boxing out,” Nelson said. “I was tired of the refs not calling the opposite big’s cheap shots so I decided to get a little more physical.”