A former nightmare has thus far turned into a dream for the UCLA men’s basketball team.
At the end of the first half, UCLA leads No. 1 Kentucky 37-29.
Yes, the Bruins are thoroughly outplaying the very team that bullied them into a 41-7 halftime deficit less than a year ago. Yes, they are overpowering the team that once trounced them in the paint. And yes, the Bruins are in position to pull off one of their biggest wins in recent program history.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, UCLA ran off a streak of beating the No. 1 team in the country for four straight years, but the Bruins haven’t sustained such success against high-ranked teams in recent memory. Not only did the Bruins lose to Kentucky last year, they also lost both of their games to Gonzaga and Arizona.
But so far on Thursday, UCLA looks like a team with a chip on its shoulder and something to prove. The Bruins began their scoring with a two-hand slam dunk by sophomore center Thomas Welsh, tying the game up at 2-2 with 18:50 to go in the first half, and wouldn’t trail again for the rest of the period.
Welsh’s dunk set the tone for an aggressive first-half performance by the Bruin offense. UCLA scored 14 of its 37 points in the paint, while it has also sustained a fair amount of success from beyond the arc, going three-for-seven in the period.
Overall, the Bruins appear to be the aggressor against a team that bullied them in the first half last year.
It’s a different night, a different feel, and a potential dream win in the making.