Beavers Dam Up UCLA, 87-84
By Derek Hart
It is generally agreed by the pundits that for a Pac-12 basketball team to win the conference this year, it needs to win on the road.
So far, UCLA hasn’t shown that they can do that, allowing Oregon State to shoot 58% and go on a 19-8 run in the second half at Gill Coliseum on Corvallis, losing to the Beavers 87-84 before a crowd of 6,019 fans who, suprisingly enough, didn’t storm the court after the final buzzer, which should say a lot about how far UCLA’s mystique has gone down.
It was OSU’s first win against the Bruins since 2005, snapping a 13 game losing streak against them and leaving Ben Howland’s team at 3-3 in the Pac-12 and 10-8 overall.
“After three consecutive wins, this is disappointing,” Howland said after the loss.
The offense wasn’t too much of a problem as the team shot 57% for the game, with five Bruins scoring in double figures, led by Lazeric Jones’ 17 points and eight assists.
Travis Wear and his twin brother David scored 16 points each and combined for eight rebounds, with Travis collecting five, while Jerime Anderson had 11 points and Joshua Smith had ten in 19 minutes.
The issue that killed UCLA was their failure to stop forward Devon Collier and the Pac-12’s leading scorer, guard Jared Cunningham. Those two Beavers combined for 41 points, Collier with a career-high 20 on 8-of-12 shooting and Cunningham with a game-high 21.
“We couldn’t make any defensive stops,” commented Howland. “You shoot 57% and lose? That doesn’t hapen very often.”
After having Oregon State score the first eight points of the game, the Bruins did well to keep it close, losing by only one point at halftine, but the 19-8 run, which pushed the Beaver lead to 70-59 midway through the second 20 minutes, and three key turnovers doomed UCLA.
Point guard Ahmad Starks’ three point basket and some Oregon State free throws finished the Bruins off.
If Howland’s bunch were in the frying pan in Corvallis, they may well be in the fire down the I-5 in Eugene as they will face an Oregon Ducks team on Saturday that’s a solid 5-2 in the conference and one game behind Pac-12 leader California.
The overwhelming question now is, does this UCLA team have the fortitude, the resilience, and the desire necessary to beat an Oregon team that, in my view, is better than their OSU rivals – knowing that a loss to the Ducks will put them below .500 and pretty much buried in the Pac-12?
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