A chance to finally catch West Virginia.
A chance to finally knock off a top-20 team.
A chance to finally make a statement on national television when
so many other teams on Saturday didn’t.
With a flick of the wrist, Mike Gansey stole all of these away
from UCLA on Saturday afternoon.
Clinging ever so gingerly to a three-point lead with only 7.2
seconds remaining, the Mountaineers senior forward cleanly picked
Jordan Farmar’s pocket as the Bruin sophomore guard made his
move upcourt, denying UCLA a final chance to tie the game and
preserving a 60-56 West Virginia victory at Pauley Pavilion.
For Farmar, whose offense late in Saturday’s game brought
UCLA back from a 20-point deficit to the brink of victory, it was a
particularly biting end to a valiant second-half effort.
“He made a great play; clean, no foul, no nothing,”
said Farmar, who had a team-high 22 points. “That’s all
there is to it.”
The Bruins weren’t without opportunities to escape with
victory before Gansey’s steal, although in the first half it
looked as if No. 18 UCLA (15-4, 5-2 Pac-10) was going to be blown
off its own home court.
Trailing 59-56 and supported by a rejuvenated Pauley Pavilion,
the Bruins had four possessions to cut the lead down to one or tie
the game.
But those four chances ““ two turnovers and two missed
3-pointers ““ left UCLA just like Farmar after he was picked
clean ““ empty-handed.
“To be down (by 20) to West Virginia and make a run so
that we had a chance to win the game ““ and I really felt we
had a great chance with four or five minutes left in the game,
““ we just missed some capitalizing on a couple of
situations,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “We were
right there, ready to turn this thing.”
The Bruins have been ready to turn the corner multiple times
this season in showdowns with top-20 teams, in each case falling
just short.
The loss was the Bruins’ third in their last five home
games, and (of lesser significance) means that No. 12 West Virginia
(14-3, 5-0 Big East) now leads the all-time series, with a 2-1
advantage.
Saturday’s game did not affect UCLA’s position in
the Pac-10, as the Bruins still remain alongside Washington atop
the standings with identical 5-2 conference records.
But it could very well drop the Bruins from the top 20 in the
Associated Press Poll for the first time all season.
“We’ve been on the verge of doing something special
for this program, but we’ve always come up one or two points
short,” said sophomore Arron Afflalo. “One or two
plays, one or two shots, this game goes the other way.”
Coming into Saturday’s game, everything about the two
teams ““ from the starting lineups, with UCLA’s
featuring all underclassmen and West Virginia’s comprised
entirely of upperclassmen ““ to both team’s respective
conferences ““ was starkly different.
UCLA’s defense had never seen a spread-out offense like
West Virginia’s, nor had the Bruins’ offense been
pitted against a defense quite like the Mountaineers’
harassing 1-3-1 zone.
From the outset, both Mountaineer schemes appeared to be just as
good as advertised.
In the first half, West Virginia shot 57 percent from the field,
burying UCLA with six 3-pointers during a crippling 34-10 run that
staked out a 39-22 halftime lead for the Mountaineers.
It didn’t help that UCLA, unable to stop West Virginia on
defense, was equally as inept on offense. The Bruins hit only 6 of
23 shots (26.1 percent) in the first half, going without a field
goal for periods of 8:11 and 4:50 during the debilitating
Mountaineer run.
By the time UCLA had made the necessary adjustments, they found
themselves down by a seemingly insurmountable deficit.
“Coach prepared us well and we knew what to expect,”
said Afflalo, who was held to a season-low four points ““ the
first time all year he hadn’t scored in double digits.
“But I guess you can say it took a little adjustment time,
which for us (resulted in) a 17-point deficit,” he said.
But just as they did against Memphis back in November, the
Bruins made a game of it in the second half.
Farmar and freshman Darren Collison found ways to attack West
Virginia’s zone, combining to score 33 of UCLA’s 56
points and sparking a furious 25-9 second-half run.
Senior center Ryan Hollins played his best game of the season,
recording season highs of 11 points and eight rebounds while also
smothering West Virginia’s Kevin Pittsnogle, who was held to
only eight points.
But their efforts weren’t enough to compensate for the
shooting woes of Afflalo and freshman Mike Roll, who combined to
make only 1 of 16 shots and were 0-for-12 from behind the arc.
And then there was Gansey, who, with his game-high 24 points
lifted the Mountaineers to the early lead and, with the last of his
four steals, left them barely still hanging onto it at game’s
end.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Howland said.
“We just fell too far behind.”