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.