The original version of this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.
Minus its most talented Buffalo, the herd was managing just fine.
Last week, in its second home stand since losing All-Pac-12 guard Spencer Dinwiddie to a torn ACL, Colorado finally looked like it could cope.
The Buffs won three straight conference games over Utah, Washington State and Washington to jump right back in the thick of the Pac-12 standings. Sophomore forward Xavier Johnson scored 27 points and hauled in 10 rebounds against Washington Sunday and appeared to be the Buffs’ torchbearer to close out the season.
But in a 92-74 loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion Thursday, Colorado was lost. The Buffs badly needed second-half direction. They needed Dinwiddie.
The Bruins outscored the Buffs 56-34 in the second half and returned to their bread and butter: running the floor and making open jump shots. Their 56.5 percent effort from the floor was their best shooting night since a Jan. 12 win over Arizona State. Simply put, UCLA looked like itself again.
“When it comes to shooting the basketball, I think we’ve got to be one of the top 15 or 20 teams in the country,” said coach Steve Alford. “Do we have some ebb and and flow and have some guys that go through stretches? Yeah. But I thought tonight we ended up tonight having five guys in double figures and five guys make a three, and there aren’t a lot of teams doing that.”
There also aren’t a lot of teams recovering from sluggish first halves like UCLA. The Bruins have trailed at the half in each of their last three conference victories, including Thursday’s 40-36 deficit. UCLA shot a respectable 50 percent in the opening 20 minutes, but attempted just four free throws.
“That’s something we have to work on,” said sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson. “We have to bring out the same intensity … the whole 40 minutes, and in the first half that we do in the second half. We just have to do that at the tipoff.”
While the Bruins fell in love with their jump shot, saving their aggressiveness for the second half, 6-foot-10 Colorado sophomore forward Josh Scott found the bottom of the net, leading all scorers in the first half with 13 points. Junior guard Askia Booker spread the wealth with seven assists, giving the Buffs a lead as large as 12 with 5:42 to play in the half.
In the second half, Colorado (18-7, 7-5 Pac-12) cooled to a Rocky Mountains temperature, making just 37.5 percent of its second-half shots. Booker dished out fewer assists, while UCLA’s frontcourt found a way to body up on Scott and alter his shots.
“We were trying to get in position and get him out of his comfort zone,” said redshirt senior forward Travis Wear. “I think in the first half, he was leaking out and getting some easy buckets in transition. He was running the floor well tonight and I think we keyed in on that in the second half.”
The Bruins (19-5, 8-3 Pac-12) showed an entirely different motor over the last 20 minutes. Anderson scored 13 of his 22 points in the second half and finished with 11 assists to record his 12th double-double of the season. He managed to find his teammates at all the right times, including a red-hot Bryce Alford.
The freshman guard was shut out in seven field goal attempts two days before his 19th birthday in Boulder, Colo., but had his cake and ate it, too, on Thursday, nailing all four of his second-half three-point attempts. Alford’s final make, with 7:33 to play, gave the Bruins a 76-66 lead.
UCLA will look to avenge a Jan. 18 loss to Utah when the Utes visit Pauley Pavilion Saturday. Tipoff is at 2 p.m.
Correction: Tipoff for UCLA men’s basketball against Utah on Feb. 15 will be at 2 p.m. Pacific Time.
According to the UCLA basketball schedule on their web page, tip-off is at 2PM, not 5PM.