UCLA men’s basketball’s struggles snowball in 71-39 loss to Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — To get to the crux of UCLA’s offensive struggles prior to Sunday’s contest against Utah, one need not look at the stat sheet, though even a cursory glance would illuminate a plethora of problems.

After four straight losses, coach Steve Alford said confidence was the key. The Bruins didn’t have much.

The little they did have may have all but evaporated, as the team was drubbed 71-39 by No. 10 Utah (12-2, 2-0 Pac-12) on Sunday.

“When you’re struggling offensively, this is the last team you want to see on the road,” Alford said. “They’re deep, they can shoot it, they execute things really well. They’ve got a swag to them and they feel good about themselves. We are obviously wounded mentally. … I think at some point in this game it gets pretty frustrating when you’re not making anything.”

While that’s not completely true, it’s pretty darn close.

UCLA (8-7, 0-2) hit just 15 of 52 field goals and went scoreless for multiple long stretches in what was a collective effort in futility.

Sophomore guards Bryce Alford and Isaac Hamilton combined to shoot 1-17, while junior forward/center Tony Parker was the lone starter to shoot better than 50 percent and led the team with 12 points.

“We’ve got a lot of guys struggling shooting the ball, and we don’t have a lot of confidence,” Steve Alford said. “This has been a long stretch for us and a tough stretch on a young team.”

During UCLA’s now five-game losing streak, the Bruins have shot 31.8 percent from the field and just 29.3 percent on the road.

In the game’s opening minutes, it seemed as if they were lucky to reach anywhere close to that mark.

The Bruins went scoreless early on in the first half, during a little more than three-minute period that allowed the Utes to stretch their lead to 17-5.

That stretch was followed up by one far more bleak. UCLA didn’t muster a single point over the final 6:09 of the half and trailed 32-15 at the break.

It’s an all-too-familiar problem for the Bruins: slow starts leading to big deficits and even greater frustration.

“What has really hurt us in these last four losses is the start,” said senior guard Norman Powell, who finished 3-8 from the field. “We come out sluggish, not running with pace, not working the offense. Our defense is there, but you can get stops all you want. … If you can’t score they are going to score eventually.”

Shots were short, passes hesitant and off target. A tepid offense struggled to find a flow yet again, as UCLA appeared as a team fixated on beating itself and one incapable of competing with – let alone defeating – a top-10 team.

UCLA managed to play a bit better – though not much – in the second half. The Bruins attacked inside, feeding Parker, who had the team’s first 10 points of the period.

Of course, that occurred over the first 10 minutes, as the rest of the Bruin team went scoreless. Freshman forward Gyorgy Goloman knocked in a jumper with 9:25 to go, becoming the first Bruin outside of Parker to score after halftime. By that time, the UCLA deficit sat at 54-27.

For the solution to UCLA’s offensive woes, it’s, well, easy.

“We just got to make it easier on ourselves to get good shots. That’s the bottom line. We’ve got to make better cuts and really use screens,” Parker said.

The hope for UCLA is that it’ll happen when the team finally returns home Thursday against Stanford, after almost a month on the road.

Maybe a return to the familiar confines of Pauley Pavilion will have UCLA looking like the team that won eight of its first 10, rather than the squad that went ice cold in December and the first week of January.

“It’s us slowing ourselves down. Everything that’s happening in these five losses is us,” Powell said. “We’ve got to do the little things that increase your chance of winning. … It’s picking up your defense and turning them over and getting easy layups in transition and getting those easy buckets. Once you get those, you feel better about yourself, and the offense starts to flow.”