Postgame Talk: A Microcosm of UCLA's Season Still Results in 73-69 Victory Over Northwestern

That title is a bit wordy but I will not be changing it.

Aday Mara (Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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This UCLA Bruins men’s basketball season has been full of ups and downs, inconsistent play and sequences of pure brilliance, nightmare road woes and questionable officiating, and more than its fair share of bizarre coaching decisions. In that light, maybe it should not be surprising that UCLA’s last regular season road game got to double as a highlight reel for this season, except this time UCLA managed to get the road victory, ultimately prevailing over Northwestern 73-69.

The first half was a great example of that inconsistent play I started with, as UCLA came out with plenty of effort and energy against a hot Wildcats squad that was celebrating senior night. The Bruins were going to need that kind of energy all night just to match a desperate Northwestern team, and unfortunately once that initial spurt faded, UCLA settled into a half of inconsistent play, especially on defense where Northwestern was able to dictate things for the most part. Northwestern is not an exceptionally-talented team by any stretch (even with Big Ten leading scorer Nick Martinelli) but they drag opponents into playing their style of game, and that’s exactly what happened in this game.

We also saw some of those questionable coaching decisions in the first half, as usual revolving around Aday Mara. Now, Mara got seven minutes in the first half, and was actually allowed to stay in the game despite making a few errors, which is progress for Mick Cronin. Yet Cronin also went with the baffling lineup choice of playing both Mara and William Kyle at the same time, which only served to clog up the paint and bog down the offense. I get the idea on the defensive end, with Kyle acting as a good complement to Mara with his speed and athleticism, but both players operate out of the block, and with neither able to act as even a midrange threat, it allowed the Wildcats to clog the paint and force the Bruins into being a jump-shooting team. We got almost four minutes of this lineup, which I would justifiably describe as dead on arrival.

Things got better in the second half, and as has been the case over the last month, the tide was shifted by Aday Mara returning to the game. Over the course of nine minutes, Mara had nine points on 4-4 shooting, grabbed five rebounds (two of which were offensive) and got a block while impacting a host of other shots. Again, I remind everyone that Aday Mara is 7’3” and will continue to be 7’3” for the remainder of the season, and Northwestern simply had no answer for the big man once he got in a flow. Eventually Mara was subbed out (Mara admitted in a postgame interview that his cardio is still not recovered from his illness a few weeks back) but his impact in this game cannot be overstated.

One of the benefits to Mara playing well is that it has led to improved play from Tyler Bilodeau, as he tries to hold on to his spot. Bilodeau played average defense in this game, but on the curve of this season that’s a major improvement, and with extra rest in the second half he was able to take over offensively to help extend the UCLA lead. Bilodeau threw down two emphatic dunks to extend the lead to 14 with 3:07 left, and for all intents and purposes this game was over.

Except, I guess neither team got that message.

Credit to Northwestern, who fought back with a tenacity and fervor that did their program proud. But the Bruins did themselves no favors down the stretch, putting on a clinic of bad basketball that would make your local rec league blush. A lot of the bad play was keyed by Dylan Andrews, who had two miserable turnovers in the final three minutes that gave the Wildcats life, while Bilodeau committed some rookie mistakes of his own. The UCLA defense, which had been stout for most of the second half, suddenly became leaky as a faucet, letting the Wildcats score at will and providing only a token defense. And our favorite bugaboo of late, missed free throws, reared its ugly head, with Andrews missing the front-end of a 1-and-1 while Skyy Clark missed one of his two free throws. The end result was that a 10-point UCLA lead with a minute left had shrunk to only two points with Northwestern possessing the ball and 20 seconds to work with.

People will point to Mick Cronin’s controlling nature as a reason for why this team plays so tight down the stretch of games, but I think it goes deeper than that. Remember: none of the players on this team came from winning programs last year. Going through a year of losing is going to negatively impact a player, and while the Bruins are winning more than they are losing this year, some habits are hard to kick, and as Cronin is fond of saying, winning players know why they won and losing players do not know why they lost. If there is anything to be gained from this season, it is that these players are working to develop those winning habits necessary in the years to come.

Of course, as has been the case almost all season, UCLA’s defense came through when it was needed to, as the Bruins challenged Nick Martinelli on his drive and blocked the shot, and a deep pass ahead to Eric Dailey led to a flagrant foul on the Wildcats, which Dailey converted with ease. Skyy Clark nailed two free throws a few seconds later, and the game was suddenly over.

A lot of focus will be put on Mara’s usage but the biggest problem in this game was Dylan Andrews. Andrews played poorly throughout the game, only scoring four points on 2-7 shooting, and a lot of his misses were not even close. The Northwestern comeback late was keyed almost entirely by miscues from Andrews, and if the Bruins had ultimately lost this game, the biggest question would have been why Cronin continued to leave Andrews on the court when better options (Sebastian Mack, Trent Perry, Lazar Stefanovic) sat on the bench. And you all have no idea how much it hurts me to call Sebastian Mack a better option than Dylan Andrews, but that was how poor he played in this game.

The rest of the team played fine, with no one really jumping out as being terrible when they were on the court. I continue to be impressed with Kobe Johnson’s run of late; his scoring does not jump off the page, but his all-around game is shining, finishing with seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block. Eric Dailey had a solid game offensively (though he could probably stand to shoot more) but his defense continues to make him a wash when he’s on the floor. Skyy Clark did not have a great shooting night, but his seven assists were a good example of how he has grown more comfortable with the offense.

UCLA got a needed road win, which is what matters here more than anything given the state of the Big Ten standings, but I think we are rapidly approaching the end of the road for this season. There is a game this Saturday against Southern Cal, one that Cronin is hopefully more prepared for than Coach Cori Close, and then the Big Ten Tournament the week after. This team is not in doubt of missing the NCAA Tournament, which seemed like a real possibility back in January, but I think it is an open question of how far this group can go; they’ve shown they can hang with a ton of talented teams, but their play has been too inconsistent to feel comfortable about them in any game.

But that’s the beauty of the postseason. Anything can happen.

Go Bruins!

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