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UCLA Basketball: Bruins ends the regular season with a loss to Utah

By Mike Regalado

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 05: Head coach Murry Bartow of the UCLA Bruins looks on during the second half against the California Golden Bears at Pauley Pavilion on January 05, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 05: Head coach Murry Bartow of the UCLA Bruins looks on during the second half against the California Golden Bears at Pauley Pavilion on January 05, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images) /
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The Utah Utes shoot the lights out against the UCLA basketball team which ends their regular season with another big loss.

It was another one of those games. The UCLA basketball team ended the regular season with a loss to Utah which epitomized exactly how this season went for the Bruins.

UCLA’s inability to score early and lack of a defensive presence allowed Utah (and pretty much most of the teams they went up against) to jump out to a sizable lead which was fueled by a three-point party from the Utes.

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It’s bad enough that UCLA is inept at playing defense, especially in their 2-3 zone, but Utah had taken advantage of the Bruins as they tied a season high of 17 made three-pointers. Along with that, when they weren’t attempting their 38 shots from outside the arc, Utah found ways to penetrate UCLA’s Swiss cheese zone.

This is nothing new. This is all information that you have heard before. I’m pretty sure that as soon as you saw the headline to this article, you knew exactly how and why the Bruins lost.

Things didn’t start off great for UCLA as Moses Brown was benched for the game for violating the UCLA Athletic Department student code of conduct, which took away the Bruins inside presence. Though other Bruins stepped up, especially Jules Bernard, David Singleton, Jalen Hill, and Alex Olesinski who had 14, 14, 13, and 13 points respectively, it was no match for what Utah was doing on their end of the floor.

UCLA was also without their point guard Jaylen Hands, at least in the stats column, as he was a ghost for the majority of this game. Hands, who has been on fire the last few weeks, was nonexistent against Utah in the first half and ended the game with 7 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists.

It was just one of those games, but in this season, when has it not been one of those games?

In regards to the Pac-12 Tournament, it actually did not matter if UCLA would have won this game as their fate was decided before tipoff when Colorado beat USC, locking him out of a first-round bye in the tourney.

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Though we have to wait for the final standings, it is already known that the Bruins will be playing on Wednesday, meaning that they will have to win four consecutive games to win the Pac-12 Tournament Championship, which is something that seems impossible seeing as UCLA has not won four games in a row since the first four games of the season.