Collison unable to make up for slow start

Darren Collison had a career-high 20 points on Thursday.

But he couldn’t make the shot that counted.

With the game tied at 61-61 with 15 seconds left, Collison took the ball into his hands on the Bruins’ final possession.

But with two seconds left, Collison’s 25-foot 3-pointer was just long.

The result was overtime, and an eventual 76-69 Bruin loss.

“We wanted to get the last shot, and I took it, but it just didn’t go in,” Collison said. “I should have drove it, and that’s my mistake.”

Coach Ben Howland afterward said he was happy with the shot, and that the final play was designed for Collison to either make a play for himself or someone else on the team.

“He’s around a 50 percent shooter from behind the 3-point line, and he had a wide-open 3-pointer,” Howland said. “It was a wide-open shot, and I can live with it.”

But it wasn’t just the last shot that Collison struggled with on Thursday.

Collison had a career-high seven turnovers, and only shot five for 15 from the field, including an unusually low three for 10 from behind the 3-point line.

All 20 of Collison’s points, in fact, came after halftime, when the Bruins were already down by 12 points.

In Collison’s last two games, he has scored a combined zero points before halftime.

“That’s something we have been struggling with all season long,” Collison said. “That’s where my responsibility comes. We have to get better starts.”

Collison and the Bruins, however, could not come up with a solution to their slow starts, and they certainly did not understand why they have had to deal with such a problem so late in the season.

“Its something we need to fix,” Collison said. “That’s all I know.”

SEED IN JEOPARDY: Following Thursday’s loss, the Bruins are no longer assured of being a No. 1 or even a No. 2 seed in the West Bracket of the NCAA Tournament next week.

The Bruins are 26-5, and have lost two consecutive games against teams not expected to make the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m pretty sure (the losses) are going to hurt our seeding,” Arron Afflalo said. “If we expect to be a No. 1 seed after losing our last two games of the year, that’s a pretty high expectation.”

Howland afterward said he still expected the Bruins to play in Sacramento next week.

“We’ll be there,” Howland said.

PAC-10 ROUND-UP: In the earlier tournament game on Thursday, No. 4 seed Oregon routed No. 5 Arizona 69-50. The Ducks were led by sharp-shooting guards Aaron Brooks and TaJuan Porter, who led Oregon with 16 and 21 points, respectively.

The Ducks spurted out to a 34-23 lead in the first half and never trailed, cruising to a double-digit victory.

In the night session, meanwhile, No. 3 seeded USC went to overtime to defeat No. 6 seeded Stanford 83-79.

USC was led by Nick Young’s 26 points, and the defense of Taj Gibson and Gabe Pruitt secured the victory.

Gibson had a block at the end of regulation that sent the game into overtime, and Pruitt had a critical steal in overtime that sealed the game for the Trojans.

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