ANAHEIM — Going into the UCLA men’s basketball team’s matchup with Arizona, coach Ben Howland said going against the Wildcats was like playing a lineup full of guards and that his Bruins would have to be able to keep up.
The Wildcats may have had the speed but they hardly had the size to challenge the Bruins’ frontcourt, and it was quickly apparent that what Howland pointed out as a concern was UCLA’s advantage on the night.
The Wear twins stood taller than any Arizona starter and continually overpowered their overmatched opponents, leading UCLA to a 65-58 win and ending the Bruins’ winless Pac-12 run before it could get any worse.
“We thought we could take advantage inside with our post up,” Howland said. “I thought we did that tonight with Dave and Travis.”
Travis had a career-high 20 points and David had 14 as the Bruins worked their way to 40 points in the paint. It was the kind of dominating performance expected from UCLA’s behemoth frontcourt and it all happened without the services of the biggest one of them all, sophomore center Joshua Smith.
Smith watched from the bench in sweats after suffering a concussion in practice Wednesday. Team doctors ruled him out for the game shortly before the tip-off.
“Josh had three really good practices (this week). I was really disappointed,” said Howland, adding that Smith’s status for Saturday’s matchup against Arizona State will be reevaluated Friday.
The Wears were implored by their coach to be more aggressive going forward. With Smith out for the game, their production was needed even more.
“That was a big emphasis the last couple days in practice,” David Wear said. “Making sure everything was going towards the hoop, no fadeaways, no shying away from contact or anything like that.”
David Wear got a little too aggressive and fouled out with 5:07 to play and the Bruins up seven. That left UCLA with just seven players in the rotation and the Bruins had to fight fatigue as Arizona chipped away.
Arizona (10-5, 1-1 Pac-12) quickly cut the lead to three while UCLA (8-7, 1-2) was mired in a field-goal drought that lasted more than five minutes. Weary and winded, the Bruins were still able to get their stops down the stretch.
Coming out of a timeout with Arizona inbounding down six points, sophomore guard Tyler Lamb came up with one of his four steals before the Wildcats could run a play. Senior guard Lazeric Jones ended UCLA’s drought shortly after with a lefty layup off glass and the Bruins sealed a close win exactly a week after losing to Stanford by a point.
“I’ve said this before, that you’ve got to win games to learn how to win,” Jones said. “It kind of came late during the preseason. Luckily we got a win now and we can learn from this and continue to get wins.”