Men’s hoops finds trouble in paradise
Bruins lose 75-71 decision to Vanderbilt, finish sixth in Maui
Invitational tourney
SCOTT O/Daily Bruin
Junior Charles O’Bannon’s basket in the final minute against
vanderbilt was not enough for UCLA to overcome the Commodores
Wednesday at the Maui Invitational.By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Staff
LAHAINA, Hawaii — The tropical island paradise of Maui turned
out to be
far from pleasant for the UCLA men’s basketball team, which
dropped a 75-71
decision to Vanderbilt at the Lahaina Civic Center Wednesday and
wound up
sixth in the Maui Invitational’s field of eight.
The Bruins, now 1-2, have already matched their loss total from
last
year’s championship season, and 27 games remain on their
regular-season
schedule.
"These guys, they had it easy last year," UCLA head coach Jim
Harrick
says. "They thought you just come out and put ’em on. You’re
gonna have to
learn the hard way. If we didn’t think we were going to have to
learn the
hard way, I understood that, I just was waiting to see it
happen."
Harrick didn’t have to wait long. The Bruins, who were one of
the
tournament favorites with a No. 4 preseason national ranking,
lost their
first game of the season in a shocking upset by Santa Clara last
Monday.
They did rebound to beat Wisconsin Tuesday, but against
Vanderbilt on
Wednesday, UCLA showed more of what hurt so much in the loss to
Santa
Clara.
And it had the same effect against the Commodores.
Looking uninspired and unemotional, the Bruins were generally
outhustled
by a Vanderbilt squad that finished the 1994-95 season with a
13-15 record
and did not receive a postseason invitation of any kind.
UCLA, behind five quick points from junior forward Charles
O’Bannon, did
jump out to an early 8-3 lead. But Vanderbilt’s Malik Evans made
a reverse
lay-in just over three minutes into the half, and the Commodores
went on a
27-9 scoring run over the next eight minutes.
"They jumped on us real early," Harrick says. "Again, we came
out
without the kind of emotion you need to play, because everybody
is going to
come after us like that."
Evans, who finished with 20 points and eight rebounds, accounted
for 11
points in the run, including the first eight. Following his
lay-in, Evans
converted one of UCLA’s 11 first half turnovers into a
three-point basket
from the left corner. That tied the score at eight, and 48
seconds later,
Evans’ three-point play gave the Commodores a lead that reached
13 points
when Drew Maddux closed the big scoring run with a 23-foot bomb
at the 8:37
mark.
Maddux finished the game with 19 points, including four
three-pointers.
"He was just catching ’em and throwing ’em," Harrick says of
Maddux. "I
thought that was real interesting, but he shot the ball really
well."
UCLA, on the other hand, did not, especially before halftime. In
the
first 20 minutes, the Bruins shot a dismal 36 percent from the
floor. That,
combined with a 65 percent clip from the foul line, helps to
explain why
Vanderbilt led by 15 points after Gianni Cugini’s free throw
with 3:07 left
in the half.
That’s about the time that UCLA woke up. The Bruins, on the
strength of
five points by J.R. Henderson, staged a 7-0 run over the last
three minutes
of the half that brought the deficit back down to eight points
at
42-34.
Then, in the second half, Jelani McCoy’s tip-in with 12:50
remaining cut
the lead to one point. Three minutes later, a 16-foot jumper by
Henderson,
who finished with a team-high 16 points and 15 rebounds,
actually put UCLA
up by a point at 55-54.
"We knew they were gonna make a run," Maddux says, "but we
were
confident enough to just hold them off."
Maddux was especially confident, and 30 seconds after
Henderson’s
jumper, he tried a three-point shot from the left side. It was
good, giving
Vanderbilt a two-point lead that it would never relinquish.
UCLA would cut it to one point on a lay-up by Kris Johnson with
3:54
left in the game, but Vanderbilt’s Frank Seckar nailed a
three-pointer from
the left corner on the Commodores’ next possession, pushing the
lead back
to four. Seckar finished with 16 points, 12 of which came from
behind the
three-point stripe.
O’Bannon cut the lead to two points again for UCLA with a
three-point
play with 51.4 seconds remaining, but a tip-in by Evans with 14
seconds
left secured the victory for Vanderbilt.
On the bright side, the Bruins dominated the boards with a
49-27
advantage. They turned the ball over just six times and made all
three of
their free throws in the second half, and finished the game with
a 41.7
shooting percentage. Vanderbilt shot 43.1 percent from the field
and turned
the ball over only 11 times in the game.
"I’m disappointed about losing," Harrick says. "But I’m trying
to learn
what these guys can do and what they can’t do as they step on
the floor. I
thought we did some things well, we did some things not so well,
also. When
you miss foul shots, lay-ins and turn the ball over, you’re
probably going
to get beat, and we’ve got to cut that out. We’ve got to cut
down on that –
that’s just carelessness and nonconcentration."