UCLA basketball lights up in second half for first exhibition win

Steve Alford’s UCLA basketball coaching career began with an exhibition winover Cal State San Bernardino Wednesday night, but it occasionally lacked brightness.

To start with, Pauley Pavilion’s overhead lights wouldn’t turn back on after the starting lineups were announced. Twenty-five minutes later, the Bruins finally, unofficially, started their season, but the shot clock wouldn’t run.

Another break. Another restart.

Finally, Pauley Pavilion’s main clock ticked away the opening seconds of a 96-66 UCLA victory over CSUSB.

For much of the first half, the Bruins experienced alternating power outages and surges, leading by as many as 13 points but failing to keep a sizable lead for all twenty minutes. CSUSB trailed by just three at the break thanks to the hot shooting of freshman guard Khleem Perkins, who was 6-for-9 from the field and 2-for-3 from three-point range. The Bruins, meanwhile, failed to sink a single one of their seven attempts from beyond the arc in the first half. They added 10 turnovers to the Coyotes’ seven.

The Bruins drained just one of their 12 three-point attempts on the game, which Alford attributed more to the circumstances of the exhibition rather than just a cold night from downtown.

“We’ve had 21 practices and we’ve really shot the three well,” Alford said. “The three tonight wasn’t a shot that I think we had to take because most of our drives ended up being drives to the basket. “

With just less than 15 minutes remaining in the first half, two of the team’s three freshmen – guards Zach LaVine and Bryce Alford – checked into the game and wasted no time before breathing some life into a sparse Pauley Pavilion crowd of just more than 4,500.

Just 14 seconds after stepping onto the court, Alford recorded his first steal and turned it into a breakaway, coast-to-coast score. On UCLA’s next offensive possession, LaVine sped past a CSUSB defender and leaped to receive an alley-oop pass from sophomore guard Jordan Adams, slamming down a thunderous dunk for his first collegiate basket.

“I couldn’t have planned that any better,” LaVine said. “It put excitement into the crowd. With me getting a dunk as my first college points – I know it’s an exhibition – but I couldn’t have had it any better.”

It was the Bruins who couldn’t have had it better in the second half. Capitalizing on breaks in the Coyote defense, the Bruins led a furious attack of high-percentage shots on the inside. UCLA shot 62.1 percent on the half to outscore the Coyotes 54-27.

Adams, who played in his first game since breaking a bone in his foot in a semifinal of last year’s Pac-12 tournament, chipped in seven points in the dominating final frame, finishing with a game-high 25 points. For much of the final period, he carried a lineup that frequently featured four guards due to the absence of freshman forward Wanaah Bail, who is recovering from knee surgery, and redshirt senior forward Travis Wear, who was treated for appendicitis on Monday, as well as foul trouble for 6-foot-9 sophomore guard Kyle Anderson.

“It was fun, that was my first live action since the Arizona game,” Adams said. “I was just trying to compete and see where we are as a team.”