SEATTLE “”mdash; It was the culmination of a weekend-long party for the purple-clad masses gathered inside Edmundson Pavilion on Saturday night. For the hometown crowd, the final result of this basketball game would only be a fitting end to their team’s farewell celebration, a decked-out gala featured for prime-time national television.
No one told the outnumbered handful donning blue and gold that they would be the sacrificial lamb.
The UCLA men’s basketball team (12-14, 7-7 Pac-10) entered its second matchup of the season with defending conference champion Washington (18-9, 8-7) prepared for another close battle. Instead it received a 97-68 beat down.
“That was embarrassing,” freshman forward Reeves Nelson said. “We didn’t really put up much of a fight.”
The loss was UCLA’s worst under seventh-year coach Ben Howland, topping a 27-point defeat to Portland earlier this season. It was also the biggest losing margin ever against Pac-10 foe Washington.
To make matters worse, it was all broadcast as part of ESPN’s game of the week.
“It’s College GameDay; we wanted to play well,” senior guard Michael Roll said. “We did the complete opposite.”
Many Washington students had camped out in tents in front of the arena as early as Thursday afternoon to get front-row seats, and their energy did not wane by game time. The noise reached a peak when forward Quincy Pondexter, the Huskies’ only senior player and the sixth leading scorer in school history, was honored in a tearful ceremony before the game.
Pondexter carried that emotion right past tipoff, scoring 10 of the team’s first 12 points including a 3-point shot to open the game. He finished with a team-leading 20 points.
“They took it out of us right away,” freshman forward Brendan Lane said. “We didn’t respond well.”
The buzzer-beating shot by UCLA guard Mustafa Abdul-Hamid that propelled the Bruins to a one-point win over the Huskies back in January seemed a long-forgotten memory, as UCLA couldn’t find any shooting rhythm. The same could not be said for Washington.
“It looks like they were shooting all night last night,” Roll said. “It seemed like everything went in.”
The Huskies shot a whopping 67.9 percent from the field in the first half, including five 3-pointers to turn the momentum permanently in their favor.
“I don’t think we shot that well all year,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said.
Meanwhile, the Bruins were 1-for-8 from beyond the arc in the opening period. Howland was particularly upset with Nikola Dragovic’s first attempt, while pointing out how the home crowd had once again focused its harassment on his senior forward for most of the pregame warm-ups.
“His first shot of the game was a bad shot,” Howland said. “(The students) were here yelling at him for two hours before the game. I don’t know how that affects him or doesn’t affect him, but he … took a dribble nowhere to take a shot that barely hit the rim.”
Nelson led the team with 14 points, followed by 13 for Dragovic and a career-high 11 from Lane, who has held his ground in place of injured senior James Keefe.
“(Lane) was the one guy in particular tonight that played well for us,” Howland said.
Although the Bruins never led in the contest, they were still within striking distance until a 17-2 Husky run pushed the lead to 21 with less than five minutes remaining in the first half.
As the first period came to a close, Washington sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas grabbed a rebound, shook a defender down the court, and threw a lob to junior wing Justin Holiday for a two-handed slam. The spectacular play gave the Huskies their biggest lead yet, 23 points, and kept the stands shaking as the players ran to their respective tunnels.
“I used four (timeouts) in the first half,” Howland said. “I just kept trying to stop the bleeding.”
The Huskies’ guards, Thomas and junior Venoy Overton, applied consistent pressure to the Bruins taking the ball up the court, which prevented UCLA from getting anything going on its end of the court until it was much too late.
“Our point guard got sped up to where he was going so fast that we had a hard time being able to execute just the first pass to get us in the offense,” Howland said.
UCLA sophomores Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson shared point guard duties on the night, but neither could get the job done, as they committed a combined seven turnovers.
Even though they were coming off the largest victory of their Pac-10 season, a 20-point victory in Pullman, Wash., just two days before, the inconsistent Bruins were again a different team.
“We thought we were coming off a really good win against Washington State,” Nelson said. “So, it’s just frustrating because we thought we were ready.”
UCLA plays its final set of home games this coming week against the Oregon schools as it continues to battle for seeding in the all-important Pac-10 Tournament.
“Obviously this is going to hurt for a while,” Howland said. “But we’ve got to come back on Monday with good concentration and get ready for our next game.”