LAHAINA, Hawaii “”mdash; They couldn’t hit an outside shot.
They couldn’t make their free throws. Not a whole lot was
going right for the UCLA basketball team offensively.
But somehow, the Bruins found a way to win what could eventually
be seen as one of the defining games of the early season.
The No. 5 Bruins (3-0) held off No. 20 Kentucky (3-1) 73-68 in
front of a very hostile pro-Kentucky crowd to advance to the finals
of the EA Sports Maui Invitational where they will face Georgia
Tech.
“We won the game not shooting the ball well,” coach
Ben Howland said. “It just goes back to our philosophy of
getting it done defensively and playing defense each and every
possession.”
Although the Bruins struggled to hit shots throughout the course
of the game, UCLA started off with as good of a run as they could
have hoped for.
Led by the outstanding play of sophomore guard Darren Collison,
the Bruins jumped out to a 26-9 lead to start the game.
But then, the Bruins went on a cold streak that would last for
the duration of the game.
The Bruins finished the game 2-19 from the 3-point range, going
2-11 in the first half and 0-8 in the second half. They missed
their last 15 attempts from behind the arc.
“We missed good looks,” Howland said. “I bet
of those 17 misses, I would venture to guess that six of them were
wide-open shots. Part of it is playing two days in a row really
hard.”
A day after scoring 25 points and hitting five out of his seven
3-point attempts, junior shooting guard Arron Afflalo missed his
final seven 3-point attempts of the game, finishing the game 5-18
from the floor and just 1-8 from behind the three-point line.
“These guys showed a lot of faith giving me the ball
despite my shooting percentages,” Afflalo said. “They
still showed that trust in me and I’m very thankful for that.
The (rest of the team) did a great job tonight. Thank God
it’s a five-on-five game.”
Another huge problem for the Bruins was free-throw shooting.
UCLA went just 4-12 from the line in the first half, and finished
the game shooting 54.2 percent from the charity stripe.
Junior center Lorenzo Mata has exemplified the Bruins’
struggles from the line so far in the Maui Invitational. Mata
missed two free-throws on Monday and wasn’t even close on his
first three attempts of Tuesday’s game.
But with the Bruins ahead 61-59 with 4:41 to go in the game,
Mata calmly swished two free-throws which were critical points for
the Bruins down the stretch.
“I air-balled one (Monday) night and I wanted to redeem
myself,” Mata said. “I missed my first three, but I
came through in the clutch. I’m glad I made some free-throws
this time.”
The Wildcats, who looked miserable offensively early on in the
game, were able to capitalize on the Bruins’ poor shooting to
get right back in the game toward the end of the first half.
After Kentucky junior guard Joe Crawford hit a 3-pointer to cut
the Bruin lead to eight at the end of the first half, the game was
virtually even. Behind the enthusiasm of a wild Kentucky crowd, the
Wildcats took their first lead of the game with just over 10
minutes to go in the game and the contest went back and forth until
the final whistle.
“We just lost intensity,” Collison said.
“We’re known for doing that in a lot of these games. We
did that a couple of times against BYU. It’s a good thing
that we picked it up (at the end of the game).”
It was Collison who made the difference-making play for the
Bruins down the stretch. With Kentucky having possession down 71-69
with 28 seconds left to play, Collison stole the ball from Ramel
Bradley, who was setting up for a potential go-ahead 3- point shot,
pushed the ball down the court and found sophomore power forward
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute for a game-sealing dunk.
“I was pretty fortunate,” Collison said laughingly
after the game. “Instead of trailing the guy, I went around
one of my post players and he could have made it if he got a good
shot. Fortunately, he fumbled the ball and I got a
steal.”
The one statistic that boded very well for the Bruins in the
game was turnovers. UCLA was able to take care of the ball for the
majority of the game, turning the ball over just eight times in the
game and only three times in the second half.
“I thought the lack of turnovers was the difference in the
game,” Howland said.