PHILADELPHIA — So it ends.
The Bruins’ shot at a fourth consecutive Final Four. The collegiate careers of three seniors. The chance to play one more game.
It all came crashing down Saturday, as No. 6-seeded UCLA could do nothing right against No. 3-seeded Villanova, the Bruins falling flat 89-69 in Philadelphia in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Bruins had as many turnovers as they had shots made (20), and they couldn’t stop the athletic Villanova squad from getting into the paint for easy buckets.
Seniors Darren Collison and Josh Shipp combined for 33 points, but it was not nearly enough to keep the Bruins in this one.
“We just didn’t come out to play today,” freshman guard Jrue Holiday said. “That’s the bottom line.”
With the exception of the first four minutes, the Bruins were never competitive.
“We were just feeling out the waters in the first couple minutes and we fell behind by a significant amount,” freshman forward Drew Gordon said. “After that, we were just trying to play catch-up and started panicking. It was bad news after that.”
After pulling to a 9-9 tie at the 16-minute mark, UCLA coughed up a 2-19 run over the next four minutes. It turned out to be the difference in the game, as the Bruins never threatened a serious comeback.
“I don’t know what it was, but when we got out there on the court, we didn’t do what we thought we were going to do,” Collison said.
The early deficit forced the Bruins to play a much more up-tempo game than they would have liked. Uncharacteristically, it was the Wildcats, not the Bruins, who took advantage of turnovers for easy points, posting 23 points off UCLA’s miscues. The Bruins could only manage four points off 11 Wildcat turnovers.
“They’re an up-and-down team. We’re a half-court team. We got into their game and played right into their hands,” Gordon said.
The Bruins defense was never able to slow down, much less stop, Villanova’s athleticism on offense. Six Wildcats scored in double digits, and they shot 46 percent as a team. UCLA had not given up 89 points this season and had not lost by 20 or more either.
But Saturday was all Villanova, and there was nothing the Bruins could do about it.
“You have to give Villanova a lot of credit,” coach Ben Howland said. “They really came out. We were outcoached and outplayed.”
By halftime, the scoreboard read 44-31, and the Bruins would not get any closer.
“I thought we were going to come back,” freshman Malcolm Lee said. “We just couldn’t get stops. Every time we got buckets, they’d just come down and score.”
Villanova made scoring look easy against the Bruins, using a combination of size and athleticism to get into the lane seemingly at will. Villanova got 46 points in the paint.
“Everybody on their team could dribble,” Lee said. “If you helped, they’d kick it out for a 3. If you didn’t, they’d just go all the way to the bucket. It was simple.”
Villanova stayed in command with the sold-out crowd of 19,894 behind them at the Wachovia Center, where the Wildcats played three times this season. The hostile environment certainly didn’t help the Bruins, as they could never put a solid run together.
“Obviously it’s harder when you’re playing on a court they’re familiar with,” Howland said. “But they were great today. I’m not sure the way we played today and the way they played, it would’ve made a difference where the game was played.”
Though the crowd was clearly behind the Wildcats, for Holiday the environment was a nonfactor.
“We didn’t do anything right today,” Holiday said. “We didn’t board, we didn’t block out, we didn’t knock down our shots. We didn’t play defense, we didn’t take responsibility for our man and keep our man in front of us.
“The environment didn’t do anything. That didn’t have any effect on our team and how we came out with no heart. We didn’t play to the best of our ability.”
Rebounding was a key issue all day for the Bruins, as senior forward Alfred Aboya took two quick fouls in the early minutes and rode the bench for much of the first half. As a result, Villanova hammered the Bruins on the glass, especially on the offensive end where they consistently had second and third opportunities for points.
The Wildcats took 20 more shots than the Bruins did and finished with 41 rebounds to UCLA’s 29.
“If we would’ve done a great job at blocking out and getting the rebound and only allowing them to shoot one shot, I think this game would’ve had a different outcome,” Aboya said. “They were so athletic. They beat us off the dribble and going for the rebounds.”
For Aboya ““ along with Collison and Shipp ““ they didn’t expect their final tournament run to end this way.
“I really felt like we have all the pieces to make another run to the Final Four,” Aboya said. “But things just didn’t work out that way.”
So it ends.