BY RYAN ESHOFF
Bruin Sports senior staff
reshoff@media.ucla.edu
LAHAINA ““ Sometimes when you’re in Hawai’i, a barrage of rain can ruin your entire day.
In striking distance of Michigan in the second half, UCLA could only watch as the Wolverines began raining down threes and effectively ended any chance the Bruins had at a victory.
Michigan won 79-63 in the third-place game of the EA Sports Maui Invitational.
“They have a veteran group of guys that really know their offense,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “This is a hard team to play.”
Playing its third game in three days in the prestigious Maui tournament, the Bruins (1-4) made an effort to avoid the slow start that had plagued them in previous games.
Senior point guard Jerime Anderson hit a fall-away three-pointer at the first-half buzzer to trim the deficit to 38-31 at the break. UCLA got as close as five in the second half ““ the second game in a row they’ve gotten that close as part of a comeback ““ but was never able to get over the hump.
“We haven’t put together a 40-minute game yet,” Howland said.
The Bruins couldn’t weather the Michigan three-point barrage in the second half, when the Wolverines (5-1) hit five of their seven trifectas. Senior Zach Novak hit four of them and finished with 22 points; sophomore Tim Hardaway, Jr. put in 20 of his own.
Sophomore Travis Wear led UCLA with 16 points, and Anderson finished with 12. Joshua Smith scored 12 points of his own, in just 19 minutes of play. He had four fouls.
When Smith was in the game, he was often unstoppable, getting easy layups and even passing adeptly out of the double-teams that Michigan was throwing at him.
“When you front Josh Smith, it’s another zip code to get on the other side of him” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “You really have to work.”
But Smith wasn’t in the long enough to have a winning impact. His conditioning and ability to stay out of foul trouble remain a work in progress.
“We wanted to win that game, but they outplayed us,” he said.
It might be back to the drawing board in many respects for UCLA, which has only a victory over Chaminade to show for itself in the win column. The Bruins return home to host Pepperdine on Monday at the Sports Arena.