As it has been prone to do, the UCLA men’s basketball team fell behind early to an inferior Pac-10 opponent.
As they’ve also been prone to do, the Bruins stormed back. They head into the half time locker room for the second to last time at the “old” Pauley Pavilion leading Arizona State 39-29. But this isn’t just any inferior opponent. It’s the Sun Devils, who currently sit in 10th place in the Pac-10 standings, 2.5 games behind Oregon State.
Arizona State jumped out to a 21-9 lead on a 3-pointer by freshman Chanse Creekmur, prompting UCLA coach Ben Howland to call one of his signature quick timeouts. The Bruins streaked out of the timeout on a 14-0 run spurred by two long bombs from sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt.
Junior guard Malcolm Lee led the Bruins in first-half scoring with 12 points. Arizona State’s sophomore center Rusian Pateev had seven.