LAS VEGAS — In a place known for its slow starts, the UCLA men’s basketball team fit right in.
If you hadn’t watched the Bruins play before Thursday’s Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal matchup with Arizona State, you might have thought they had spent a night on the town and woken up hungover. Maybe they were still reeling from losing that bet and having to wear jerseys printed with zebra stripes.
UCLA’s lackadaisical start wasn’t anything new. It has been a hallmark of this team, which relies so much on the youth of three freshmen in the starting lineup, to look sluggish at tip-off.
Why does it keep happening?
“I have no clue,” said point guard Larry Drew II, the team’s only senior. “No idea, man.”
Fortunately for the Bruins, Drew made sure a bad situation didn’t get worse.
While Shabazz Muhammad and Jordan Adams clanked away and combined to shoot 4-of-13 in the first half, it was Drew who quietly kept UCLA in the game. Instead of looking for his teammates, Drew looked to shoot.
He hit all four shots he took in the first half, keeping UCLA within eight at the break. The Bruins later went down by 15, but Drew’s hot hand brought them right back. He shot 8-of-10 from the field and made all four of his three-pointers, finishing with a career-high 20 points.
“I definitely noticed the fact that Shabazz and Jordan – even though they’re being aggressive – the ball, for whatever reason, wasn’t going in the hoop,” Drew said. “I found my shot a little bit earlier in the game and I didn’t want to stop shooting.”
All this from a player that just broke UCLA’s single-season assist record.
It’s not in the UCLA game plan for Drew to score, making it even more remarkable that he went off for his career day. Asked if there are any plays for him in coach Ben Howland’s playbook for him to score, Drew just laughed.
“Not on this team,” Drew said.
Drew has had an identity crisis of sorts this season while he tries to figure out how much scoring UCLA needs. At times, teams guard him as if he has no fingers on his hands and couldn’t possibly get a shot off. Arizona State point guard Jahii Carson did just that Thursday and Drew fired away.
And Drew’s teammates finally caught up to him. Muhammad went off himself in the second half, willing the Bruins to a come-from-behind win. Those kinds of concentrated outbursts fit UCLA’s personality, not complete games from start to finish.
The game ended only when Drew decided to – surprise! – pass the ball. He ran a high pick-and-roll with Travis Wear, waited for the defense to converge his way, then whipped a pass back to Wear, who nailed a long shot with his feet on the three-point line. UCLA went up three with 11 seconds left and moved on to a semifinal matchup with Arizona.
“Coach just trusts me with the ball out there on the high pick-and-rolls, and trusts that I’ll make plays for myself and others,” Drew said.
Teams will have to trust Drew can make the open jumpers they’ve been letting him take for so long. UCLA has plenty of scoring weapons already, but Drew adding himself to that group makes the Bruins much more dangerous in March.
E-mail Menezes at rmenezes@media.ucla.edu or tweet him @ryanvmenezes.