For the second time this season, No. 23 UCLA men’s basketball let an unranked team force overtime.
This time, the Bruins weren’t able to close out the win.
UCLA (7-2) fell to Michigan (8-3) by a score of 78-69 even though the Bruins led by as many as 15 points in the second half.
The Bruins got production out of their upperclassmen, with senior center Thomas Welsh and junior guard Aaron Holiday each posting career highs with 27 and 22 points, respectively. Welsh sunk both of his 3-point attempts.
The rest of the team mustered up just 20 points on 8-of-28 shooting, including 0-of-11 from beyond the arc.
But the figure that jumped off the stat page the most was turnovers. UCLA totaled 20 turnovers to Michigan’s 11 throughout the contest, with seven of the Bruins’ turnovers coming from Holiday. Redshirt sophomore guard Prince Ali came in second on the team with four.
UCLA led for 78.9 percent of the game, and exited the first half up by 3 despite 12 turnovers in the opening period. The Bruins started the second half with a 13-4 run, but the Wolverines clawed back and eventually tied the game on a pair of free throws from guard Eli Brooks after a foul by Welsh.
This play came directly after redshirt sophomore forward Alex Olesinski hit just one of his two attempts from the charity stripe.
In overtime, UCLA only scored twice in but turned the ball over three times – twice by Holiday and once by Welsh – en route to the Bruins’ second loss of the season, both on the road.
Terrible coaching job by Alford. Players were dribbling the ball into traps instead of passing for a good shot with a 15 point lead and he never calls a timeout to stop the madness.
Agreed that time outs should have been called. Why the Bruins continued to drive into the paint with no apparent plan was beyond me. They’d end up in the air with no shot or pass (turnover). Dribbling into traffic (turnover). Someone needs to teach these kids about ball-handling, protecting the ball, not being so sloppy.
And at the end of regulation, why was Goloman bringing it in? Welsh and every other good free throw shooter should have been in the back court. Any moron knows that Michigan would put pressure on the ball so that it’d come back to Goloman. It did. He was fouled immediately. And being the 50% FT shooter that he is, made 1of 2, leaving the Bruins with a 2 point lead with 16 seconds to go.
Holiday has always been loose with the ball. Great scoring today though.