A 2-foot-tall toddler stood draped in a too-big Bruin jersey, hand firmly planted over his heart, belting the national anthem from the nosebleeds of Pauley Pavilion. His unbridled enthusiasm grew to near hysteria Thursday as UCLA almost managed to stage a late-game comeback, but the boy was rendered disappointed as his Bruins ultimately fell 75-73 to Utah.
At first, the game was under UCLA’s control after junior guard Isaac Hamilton fueled a hot-scoring start for the Bruins. Hamilton racked up five points within the first two minutes and went on to score 10 points in the first 20.
Just under three minutes into the first half, freshman guard Aaron Holiday collected the long rebound off an uncharacteristic Hamilton miss. After Holiday was unable to convert the layup, sophomore forward Jonah Bolden grabbed the loose ball and fed it to sophomore center Thomas Welsh for the easy lay-in.
The third-chance opportunity seemed to be indicative of the Bruins’ play, which for the first half was defined by solid passing, aggressive rebounding and a cohesive offense.
It looked as though UCLA’s big-small lineup was finally clicking as the Bruins rode a 31-31 tie into halftime, but Utah came out of the locker room, guns blazing, for the final 20 minutes of play just as the Bruins went cold. The Utes strung together a 10-2 run to outpace UCLA 51-40 by the time 13 minutes were left on the clock.
“Their run to start the second half was just longer than our run was,” said coach Steve Alford. “Our run just came a little but too late.”
UCLA was successful at first with limiting Utah forward Jakob Poeltl, which helped the Bruins keep up initially. UCLA held Poeltl to four points on 2-of-6shooting in the first half, far below his game average of 17.8 points, while also largely keeping the forward off the glass – allowing him to pull down only six rebounds.
“We knew coming in how good he was, but I though we did a really good job the first half of fighting him,” said junior guard Bryce Alford. “We were doubling him on pretty much every catch he got close to the paint.”
With just over a minute left before halftime, Poeltl posterized UCLA’s defense with a powerful one-handed dunk, showing flashes of how dangerous he can be when he gets going. That play proved to be foreshadowing as Poeltl racked up 10 points and five rebounds over the final 20 minutes, fueling Utah’s late-game run.
“We’ve just got to limit teams,” Hamilton said. “(We’ve got to) limit them to one shot, then push in transition.”
Utah’s second-half domination lasted for 14 minutes before the Bruin defense doubled down to lay the foundation for a potential UCLA comeback. With just under three minutes remaining, the Bruins pieced together a major stop that set up Bryce Alford for a signature clutch 3-pointer that had UCLA trailing 70-66 with three minutes left.
“We really picked up our intensity, something we should have had for the entire game,” Bryce Alford said. “We came back, … something we’ve been accustomed to doing. … We just gotta figure out how to do it for 40 minutes.”
The Bruins were down just two points in the final minute after once again coming up with a major defensive shutdown. Steve Alford had his starting lineup in for the final stretch as UCLA found itself in familiar territory – needing one last score to take down a major Pac-12 opponent.
That final score came too late. A Hamilton miss gave Utah the ball with just over 40 seconds left and a dagger 3 by Ute Brandon Taylor handed UCLA a five-point deficit the Bruins couldn’t overcome. A buzzer 3 by Holiday couldn’t change the outcome – UCLA lost by just two points.
“You’ve gotta be able to play with pressure at this level,” Steve Alford said. “In the games that we’ve needed the most we haven’t done that and that’s kinda been the story of the season.”