This post was updated at 11:59 p.m.
On UCLA’s first possession Wednesday night, Bryce Alford found Tony Parker, who calmly spotted up and sank a quick jumper.
Cal State Fullerton answered with a shot clock violation.
Though the game didn’t end there, it might as well have.
After dropping two of three games and allowing more than 76 points per game last week in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas, the Bruins returned to form offensively – and may have found a new one defensively – with a 73-45 win over the Cal State Fullerton Titans.
Senior guard Norman Powell led the Bruins’ offensive effort with 18 points, shooting 3-4 from deep, as all five Bruin starters scored in double digits, but it was the UCLA defense that stole the show.
“Tonight, especially defensively this might have been our best 40 minutes,” said coach Steve Alford. “I thought we really defended well. We did a good job on the backboard, we held them to 24 percent shooting. We just did a lot of really good things. This was a really good team effort for us.”
UCLA (6-2) showed little signs of jet lag or wear and tear from playing its eighth game in 19 days, as Cal State Fullerton’s (3-5) 45 points marked the lowest total for any Bruin opponent this year.
UCLA jutted out to an early 20-8 lead before extending it 40-23 at the break, capped off by a vicious alley-oop from sophomore guard Isaac Hamilton to Powell.
The Titans made just eight of their first 30 shots, including two of 10 from beyond the arc over the initial 30 minutes and finished the contest with just one player scoring in double figures.
“Really we just came out and tried to build an identity on defense. We didn’t like how we played against Oklahoma and North Carolina,” Powell said. “Coach talked about this being an identity-builder game, taking it on your chest, getting mad when someone scores on you. We took a giant step today defensively as a team.”
After struggling for parts of the team’s three-game stay in the Bahamas, freshman forward Kevon Looney asserted himself early and often in the first half, notching eight points and three rebounds in the opening seven minutes of play.
Looney partnered inside with Parker, who made his first six shots and finished with 12 points and nine rebounds as the Bruins regularly attacked the paint, outscoring the Titans 26-14 down low. UCLA outrebounded Cal State Fullerton 50-34 for the game, and allowed just eight offensive boards over the contest.
“Me and Tony just wanted to make a statement early: that we control the paint, that we’re the big bodies down there and we lay down the law down there,” Looney said. “We play better from inside-out. We can get our guards going, get going from the low post, we just play a lot better.”
Meanwhile, coach Steve Alford followed up on his statement earlier in the week, mixing a number of different lineups throughout the night to take advantage of the Bruins’ length on defense.
No matter who took the floor for the Bruins, the Titans found little in the way of offense, shooting 20.8 percent in the second half and 24.1 percent for the game, the lowest total for a UCLA opponent this year.
Cal State Fullerton never found a rhythm offensively, turning the ball over 16 times, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the Titans trailed by double digits for much of the contest, including the entire second half.
Like UCLA’s first five opponents, Cal State Fullerton struggled with the Bruins’ size, often settling for long jump shots, shooting 4-20 from beyond the arc.
And like those other teams, the Titans failed to slow the Bruins’ transition game, as UCLA pushed the pace in its return to Pauley after finding it difficult to do so against the likes of Oklahoma and North Carolina.
UCLA was not without some concerns, however. As its starters ripped through Cal State Fullerton’s defense, the bench players plodded along. Freshman forward/center Thomas Welsh’s jump shot with 5:52 to go in the game marked the first points for a Bruin reserve as the group finished a combined 3-17.
There were also the 14 turnovers, a stat that on any other night might have doomed the Bruins.
But not Wednesday night. And not with a defense like this.
Whether UCLA’s newfound identity is a permanent appearance remains to be seen, particularly with games against Gonzaga and Kentucky still to come.
“The schedule just continues to get more and more difficult and we have to get better,” Alford said. “We were better in these 40 minutes than we were against UAB and that’s a positive. We just have to take it one game at a time and one day at a time.”