Postgame Talk: Donovan Dent Makes UCLA, Big Ten History as Bruins Knock Off Rutgers 72-59
The senior guard recorded the first triple-double in Big Ten Tournament history in the victory.
When Rutgers upset Minnesota to open Big Ten Tournament play last night, it created a potential problem for the UCLA Bruins. UCLA had been surging down the stretch, with two victories over Top 10 teams in the previous few weeks helping lift the Bruins off the bubble. With a potential matchup with Minnesota on tap, UCLA was poised to avenge its loss a few weeks ago, but even a loss wouldn’t have killed them, given what Minnesota had done the last month.
Rutgers presented a different problem, where a loss would undo all of the good work the Bruins had done in recent weeks to put themselves in position for a decent seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Scarlet Knights were also on a bit of a run down the stretch; the victory over Minnesota was their third win in their last four games, with the lone loss coming by four points on the road to Michigan State. There was suddenly added pressure on a UCLA team that had won only one game outside of the Pacific timezone this year.
Given all of that, consider the first test of the postseason passed.
UCLA played some classic Cronin basketball en route to a 72-59 victory over Rutgers to open Big Ten Tournament play. The Bruins controlled the game throughout, racing to a double-digit lead early in the second half on the back of their defense, then spending the rest of the half keeping Rutgers at arm’s length. The Scarlet Knights were able to cut the lead to nine points a few times, but that’s as close as they were able to get.
The story of this game is, of course, Donovan Dent. UCLA has spent the entire season hoping Dent could live up to his NIL pricetag, and postseason basketball is where you hope that your stars can live up to their billing. That’s exactly what happened in this game, as Dent’s 12-point, 12-assist, 10-rebound performance represented the first triple-double in Big Ten Tournament history, and the 5th in UCLA basketball history. It was a masterful performance, with Dent showing a ton of effort on the defensive end to grab rebounds while orchestrating the UCLA offense well; he would have had a shot at beating Braden Smith’s 16 assists in the prior game had UCLA shot the ball even close to their season average. Dent could have been more efficient in his shots, still missing several layups, but if the senior guard can keep providing something similar to this performance, that really helps things out.
UCLA’s defense was the other part of the story, as the Bruin defense traveled east for what feels like the first time all season. Rutgers isn’t a great offensive team, but they can score, averaging 71 points per game. Just last night, the Scarlet Knights shot 46% from the field against Minnesota. The Bruins were locked in on the defensive end, holding Rutgers to a measely 37.9% shooting from the field and outrebounding the Scarlet Knights 40-30. Impressively enough, the Bruins limited Rutgers to only seven offensive rebounds and limited a Rutgers offense that typically gets 25% of their points on the fast break to only eight fast-break points.
UCLA needed that defensive effort because the offense was stuck in neutral for most of the game. It was not a case of UCLA failing to generate good looks, but rather UCLA failing to hit their open shots. To me, it felt like the pressure of needing the win got to a few players, with guys not taking open shots or playing soft when going up for their shot. Tyler Bilodeau looked like he was dealing with some kind of illness, struggling for breath at times, but still leading the team with 21 points on 5-11 shooting, while Skyy Clark, Trent Perry, and Eric Dailey all kept forcing up shots instead of taking open looks. Credit to Cronin for recognizing that Dailey was not playing with the rest of the team early and subbing him for Brandon Williams, who provided some solid bench minutes and helped get Dailey more focused for the second half. Eric Freeny did not see the level of run he has had in recent weeks, in part due to ineffectiveness, but he did provide generally solid bench minutes when he was in.
With the win, UCLA got what it had to have from the Big Ten Tournament. Tomorrow’s matchup against Michigan State represents an opportunity to improve their NCAA Tournament life, but even a close loss would help in that regard, and another blowout loss wouldn’t notably change their seeding at this point. Maybe the best-case scenario is simply UCLA getting through tomorrow’s game with no injuries; Clark suffered a cramp in the second half but did come back to play, and Bilodeau was seemingly playing with some sort of respiratory issue.
Either way, on to tomorrow.
Go Bruins!
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I had to work late and only saw parts of the Rutgers game. UCLA has been flat after traveling to the Midwest this season. I suspect that the team will feel a lot better after a day to adjust to the travel, so hopefully we'll see a better UCLA team against Michigan State. I agree that Tyler Bilodeau did not look healthy, so hopefully he will feel better tomorrow as well. UCLA is playing a lot better (generally) now than it was when traveling to Michigan, so hopefully a neutral court and a more in tune UCLA team will make a big difference.
Quite an individual accomplishment for the $3M man. Looks like the Bruins are going to go as far as he can take them. Hope Sparty comes out rusty and overconfident and that HC Cronin doesn't assess any Flagrant-2 technical fouls on his own players again.
Go Bruins!