There have been times this season when Jordan Adams has gone missing for UCLA.
There was the 0-for-9 shooting effort against Oregon State in which the sophomore guard looked to facilitate rather than shoot. There was the game on Thursday night against Colorado in which Adams struggled mightily from three-point range, missing each of his five attempts from beyond the arc.
Even his last time out against Utah was forgettable. Adams, the Bruins’ leading scorer, scored just 11 points and was held without a field goal for the entire first half, facing early foul trouble. He flat-out went missing.
But in UCLA’s 80-66 trouncing of Utah on Saturday, Adams couldn’t miss.
He scored from deep, nailing all three of his three-point attempts. He scored on mid-range jumpers. He even scored at the rim. Adams scored a team-high 24 points, and, for the first time since a Nov. 22 win over Morehead State, made 10 field goals.
“He got going early and he did a good job of moving without the basketball. Sometimes he gets in a hurry because he wants to do so well,” said coach Steve Alford. “That’s what you love about Jordan, he throws his whole heart out there, but I thought he got in a good rhythm tonight.”
The whole team’s offensive cadence looked much improved from UCLA’s first half performance in Salt Lake City four weeks ago, in which the Bruins shot just 31 percent. This time, UCLA led Utah 33-31 at the break and managed to hold two Utah starters, forward Jordan Loveridge and guard Delon Wright, to a combined four points.
All the elements of a game blown open were in place, save for a key run.
The Bruins were hardly out of the tunnel to start the second half when they left the Utes in the dust for good. A dunk by junior guard Norman Powell capped off a 12-0 run in the first 4:51 of the half, and for the remainder of the game, UCLA’s lead was never less than 10.
“That’s where we make our runs,” said sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson, who recorded his 22nd career double-double in scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. “Coach told us about the old Lakers teams, the old Bulls teams — the third quarter in the NBA is where the best team is normally the best team.”
The Bruins would have to settle for halves instead of quarters, but over the last 20 minutes they were easily the better team. They forced Utah (17-8, 6-7 Pac-12) into committing eight second-half turnovers, and shot 64.3 percent from the field to close the afternoon.
Adams’ sharpshooting certainly didn’t hurt. In a stretch of just 125 seconds midway through the half, the sophomore made three jump shots to put UCLA up by 16. His shooting adjustment was apparently nothing mystical, just a case in which he understood his coach’s message of allowing movement to get him the ball in open space.
“(Alford) just told me to stay aggressive,” Adams said. “They run a matchup zone and right before I left the locker room coach told me, ‘Keep moving and the ball will find you.’ And that’s what happened.”
The Bruins (20-5, 9-3) also happened upon sole possession of second place in the Pac-12 Saturday, one game behind 10-2 Arizona and one ahead of Arizona State and Cal, both 8-4.
With the race to win the conference regular season title so close, UCLA will have forget the wins and losses alike and keep moving on.
“It’s just going through this and understanding how win or lose, play well, play bad individually, you kind of gotta do the Etch A Sketch thing and move on,” Alford said. “Next play, next game.”