The loudest cheers of the night came with 18 seconds left in the game and the UCLA men’s basketball team up by 32 points.
With the game already in hand, point guard Mustafa Abdul-Hamid drove past his defender and finished with a left-handed layup, scoring the final points of the Bruins’ 100-68 victory over New Mexico State (3-6) and bringing what was left of the 5,933 in attendance at Pauley Pavilion to their feet.
In more ways than one, it was the polar opposite from last Saturday’s humiliating 72-54 loss to Mississippi State. For one, the Bruins (3-6) were greeted with cheers rather than jeers.
When the Bruins left the court at the end of the first half on Saturday, the Honda Center crowd booed the team off the floor.
“That’s a horrible feeling,” freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt said. “So we just tried to come out here, prove that we are UCLA, and we’re trying to live up to the tradition.”
On Tuesday night, they took a step in the right direction.
The Bruins were much improved shooting the ball, parlaying a 61.3 percent shooting effort in the first half into a 56.1 percent shooting percentage on the game (37-of-66).
Coach Ben Howland attributed the Bruins’ offensive turnaround to a defense that limited New Mexico State to 38.9 percent shooting from the field and forced 20 turnovers, which led to 28 points.
“Your best chance to fast-break is not when the other team scores and you’re taking it out of the net, but when you’re outletting the ball and getting a quick push out,” Howland said. “I think players have fun. They have fun when they can get in the open court like that.”
Sophomore guard Malcolm Lee, who scored a game-high 20 points on seven-of-eight shooting, agreed with his coach.
“We just wanted to keep up the defensive intensity because in the first half, the reason why we were scoring so well is because we were playing good (defense), we were making them shoot bad shots and we just get the rebound, push it, and that just led to easy transition buckets,” Lee said.
Howland was still able to point out a couple of flaws in the Bruins’ game, pointing specifically to a couple of Bruin defenders that got beat off the dribble; but overall he was pleased with the effort, one game after the loss he said “felt really bad” that UCLA-coaching great John Wooden had to see in person.
“I’m just glad that our guys came out and played a pretty good solid game tonight,” Howland said.
JERIME ANDERSON SHINES
One player who drew a great deal of praise from Howland was sophomore point guard Jerime Anderson.
After struggling through much of the season thus far, Anderson scored 13 points on five-of-eight shooting and dished out seven assists.
“I thought Jerime had his best game as a Bruin,” Howland said. “A very good floor game and also knocked down a couple shots. It was nice to see that, get him going.”
Coming into the game, Anderson was averaging just 5.5 points per game while shooting just 34.8 percent from the field.
On Tuesday, that changed. Amid his five-of-eight shooting from the floor, he hit on both his three-point shots and made his lone free-throw attempt.
While Howland still does not want Anderson jumping in the air to pass, a noted pet peeve of his, he was encouraged by the performance of his young point guard.
“I thought he really did a tremendous job today reading the defense,” Howland said.
UCLA FACES NOTRE DAME ON SATURDAY
The tough nonconference schedule for the Bruins continues on Saturday when the team travels to South Bend, Ind., to take on Notre Dame at 11 a.m. The game will air on CBS.
Last season, the Bruins welcomed the Fighting Irish to Pauley Pavilion for a 10 a.m. start and had arguably their best game of the season, cruising to an 89-63 victory on Feb. 7.
“I know that they’ll be very much looking forward to welcoming us in South Bend,” Howland said. “It’s going to be a tough game. We’re going to have to really play well at both ends of the floor.”