UCLA was put on the ropes by the best individual performance it has seen from an opponent this season.
But the Bruins won by playing the best team basketball they have played all year.
Thursday night’s conference matchup against Stanford ended with UCLA ahead 77-73, despite a career-high 35 points from Pac-10 scoring leader, Cardinal senior forward Landry Fields.
UCLA’s gameplan was clear: Stop Stanford’s high-scoring duo, Fields and sophomore Jeremy Green, and in that respect, the Bruins flat out failed. They didn’t flinch, however, and a second-half run gave them the edge they needed.
“That was a great, hard-fought victory for our guys,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “I was really proud of the way they hung in there.”
The Bruins (11-11, 6-4 Pac-10) scored 11 straight points in the middle of the second period to spin a six-point deficit into a five-point lead. Stanford (10-12, 4-6) never recovered.
“The pace of the game in the second half was exactly to our liking,” Howland said.
UCLA recorded a season-low five turnovers and nearly complemented nearly all of the team’s made baskets with assists. With a few bullet passes and some sneaky rebounding, freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt was the catalyst for many of those offensive plays. He finished just two assists shy of the school’s first triple-double since 1995.
“He’s really starting to play well for us,” Howland said. “Tyler made some unbelievable plays tonight.”
Reeves Nelson led the Bruins with 18 points. As the game’s dominant force inside, the freshman forward pounded his opponents in the post for most of his 26 minutes on the court. “I think it’s important that we have a lot of ways to score,” Nelson said. “We don’t have just one or two guys you can key on.”
Fields had 15 by halftime, but he only got hotter. The six-foot-seven-inch forward from Long Beach did not miss a single shot in the second half including two key 3-pointers.
“Landry Fields is a load,” Howland said. “I think it’s pretty evident that guy’s going to make a lot of money playing basketball.”
Free-throw shooting, which had been a major weakness for UCLA all season, worked in its favor toward the end of the game with the Bruins making 18-of-22 after the break. Senior guard Michael Roll sank two from the line with 3.4 seconds remaining to clinch the win.
In the first half, it was Roll’s bombs from deep that kept UCLA in the game despite woes on the defensive end. He was 4-for-5 beyond the arc on the night.
Stanford sophomore Jeremy Green also contributed 18 points as the only other Cardinal to score in double figures. Green had a 30-point game against the Bruins in Palo Alto last month, the previous individual high score for UCLA’s opponents this year.
Bruins in first-place tie:
With losses coming in from conference leaders Arizona and California, UCLA is now tied with both those teams and Arizona State for first place in the Pac-10. The Bruins are also at .500 for the first time since being 2-2 in November. They finish the weekend home stand with a Saturday afternoon rematch of the same Bears team that they beat in overtime last month in Berkeley.