He said he was so tired when he woke up for the Bruins’ 11:30 a.m. tip-off that he had to hit the snooze button for an extra 10 minutes of sleep. But when Kevin Love took the court on Saturday morning, there were no signs of weariness.
The freshman center had himself a career day, scoring 27 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, and, perhaps most importantly, sinking two late free throws to stave off Washington State’s improbable late-game rally.
“I hope he keeps having more best games of his career as we move forward because he was an absolute beast,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said of Love. “I think we did a good job of getting him the ball.”
Love made his presence felt on the defensive end as well, helping to limit the Cougars’ second-leading scorer, junior Aron Baynes, to just eight points on three field goal attempts.
Baynes, a 6-foot-10-inch, 270-pound center, is one of the rare collegiate big men who is Love’s equal in size and strength. That forced Love to use finesse on the offensive end, and he supplemented his usual post moves with a selection of hook shots and fadeaways, as well as the occasional 3-pointer.
“He’s a big guy,” Love said of Baynes. “He looks like he’s about to be at the outdoor games, about to chop down a tree or something.”
Love wasn’t fazed by Baynes’ size, and he was able to have his way on the interior through much of the game. Love had an especially impressive rebounding performance in the first half when he outrebounded the entire Washington State team, 8-7.
The UCLA big man also recorded four assists, including an alley-oop to junior Alfred Aboya in the second half on a play that Love said the Bruins try to use to catch the opponent off guard.
“It was just a matter of time before he could show the crowd what he could do,” junior Josh Shipp said of his freshman teammate.
COLLISON UPDATE: Junior point guard Darren Collison, who suffered a left hip contusion in the Bruins’ Thursday night game against Washington, started for UCLA against Washington State on Saturday, after undergoing extensive treatment in the hours prior to the game.
“I went through a lot of treatment and I felt the pain a little bit at the beginning of the game, but not so much during the game because of the high volume of intensity and adrenaline,” he said after the game.
Collison was acknowledged by Howland and his teammates for finding openings in the Cougar defense and creating his own shots, especially during a superb second half when he had 16 points, including a number of crucial free throws in the final two minutes of the game.
“Darren did a great job orchestrating things out there,” Howland said. “He knows the magnitude of the game and how important this game was for our season, so I expected him to play and just fight through (the pain).”
MILLER TIME: Former Bruin and NBA superstar Reggie Miller was in attendance for UCLA’s victory and spoke with the team in the locker room following the win.
For one current player, it won’t be the last sighting of Miller. Howland plans to have Miller speak with Shipp about reading screens and breaking down defenses.
“He’s the best ever at being able to read screens and watch the guy guarding him,” Howland said.
UP NEXT: UCLA will have nearly a week to recover before its next game, which will be played against USC on Saturday in the first much-anticipated meeting between Love and Trojan freshman O.J. Mayo, two of the top freshmen in the nation.
Love, however, doesn’t want the game to be seen as a showdown between two individuals.
“I just don’t want them to make it the “˜O.J. Mayo v. Kevin Love’ type of show,” he said. “It’s going to be UCLA v. USC, and hopefully, like I said before, UCLA comes out on top.”