UCLA basketball upperclassmen Aaron Holiday and Thomas Welsh hit 1,000 career points in the Bruins’ Pac-12 opening win against Washington State.
It was a sloppy start to an exciting game, but the UCLA basketball team had plenty of reasons to celebrate after the Bruins start Pac-12 play 1-0 with a win over Washington State and hit a few milestones along the way.
Both the Bruins and Cougars started the contest with a lot of missed shots. In the first five minutes, UCLA hit 1/10 and Wazzu made 1/8. It was a painful 7-3 score at that point.
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Luckily, both teams had life injected to them after that and put on a display for the Pauley Pavilion crowd. At halftime it was UCLA up on Wazzu, 42-37, with both teams shooting better, but less than 40%.
One of the few highlights in the first half came when Holiday hit 1,000 career points. Even better, he ended up with a career-high 33 points on 11/18 shooting and 5/5 from downtown. He also added 11 rebounds to the game which gave him his second double-double as a Bruin. If it wasn’t for Holiday, UCLA would have been in a spot of trouble in the first half. Luckily a few other Bruins stepped up in the second.
With Holiday hitting 1,000 points in the first half, Welsh accomplished the same feat in the second. The senior put up 12 points for the game and 1,001 in his career. He also had 14 rebounds which gave him his 9th double-double of the season.
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But that is not all. Jaylen Hands came alive with an 8-point scoring stretch in the second half that led to his 19 points. Kris Wilkes added 14 which helped UCLA push past the Cougars after halftime. There were still moments of sloppiness, but in the end it worked out for the Bruins who are 1-0 to start conference play.