Postgame Talk: UCLA Avoids Letdown with 71-64 Victory Over Northwestern

The Bruins built up a big lead before coasting in the second half.

Eric Dailey (Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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It would not have been a shock to see the UCLA Bruins come out against Northwestern and have a letdown game. Coming off their upset victory over Purdue on Tuesday and playing one of the worst teams in the conference, I’m sure there were many moments where the Bruins could have coasted and simply refused to play hard.

And down the stretch, that fear began to take hold, as the Wildcats chipped away at a UCLA lead and got things down to six points with less than three minutes to go. Fortunately for the Bruins, they had played a much better game up to that point, which gave them the cushion to ride out one last Northwestern push and leave with a 71-64 victory.

I wrote during the game that part of the story of this game could be told at the free throw line. UCLA had a late flurry of made free throws to make things a little more respectable, but part of what made this game close was that free throw disparity between the teams. And I don’t mean that Northwestern shot an inordinate amount of free throws compared to the Bruins, but rather that Northwestern was making their free throws while the Bruins refused to. Even with Trent Perry and Eric Dailey hitting their shots at the end, the Bruins still finished with a miserable 52.4% makes from the free throw line, while Northwestern hit 17 of their 20 attempts. UCLA’s free throw shooting has been bad all season, but this was an especially terrible performance, and while Donovan Dent will take most of the blame here, this was a team-wide effort.

The funny part is, if you take away the free throw issues, UCLA generally played a pretty good game. Offensively, UCLA looked really sharp, sitting above 50% from the field for the majority of the game before finishing at 49% (26-53) from the field and 44% (8-18) from three. I’ve said for awhile that this team is full of good three-point shooters and that they should try shooting from distance more, and UCLA is really starting to make that a reality, with four Bruins making shots from distance. Funnily enough, one of those four was not Trent Perry, who missed all four of his three-point attempts but has generally been a good shooter from distance, but it speaks to UCLA’s outside proficiency to be that deep from distance.

You can forgive Perry for missing his three-point attempts, because otherwise he was an offensive force in this one. Perry tied for a team-high 18 points on 6-12 shooting while also hitting six of his seven free throw attempts. He had some turnover issues, but this was another excellent performance from Perry, which should continue to open things up for the Bruins once Skyy Clark returns from injury. Tyler Bilodeau also had an excellent game as he also finished with 18 points, and at once point was perfect from the field before finishing 7-11 from the field. Interestingly enough, eight of those 11 field goal attempts came from behind the arc, which speaks to both his growing confidence from distance while also illustrating a shift in UCLA’s offensive approach.

I should note as well that the Bruins aren’t avoiding the paint. In fact, the Bruins won the points in the paint battle yet again, scoring 30 points compared to 24 for Northwestern (with six of those coming at the end when UCLA was offering only token defensive pressure on drives). Most of that damage came courtesy of Donovan Dent, who had a solid offensive game even if he could not hit a free throw, finishing with 13 points and five assists. Eric Dailey Jr, who had a forgettable at best game for most of this one, came on late as well in the paint.

Defensively, UCLA was pretty effective. Northwestern was held to 37.7% from the field on the game, and while Nick Martinelli was able to extend his 20 PPG scoring streak late, he had to work extremely hard to get there, going 8-19 from the field. Crucially, Martinelli was limited to only four free throw attempts, a testament to how well the Bruins defended him and forced him into taking tough shots. UCLA also did one of their best jobs of the season when it came to crashing the glass - while Northwestern ended up with eight offensive rebounds, that only represents 24% of their misses, while UCLA grabbed 26 defensive rebounds in the process. Xavier Booker in particular was great in this regard, grabbing eight rebounds and generally playing solid defense. Two games does not make a turned corner, but this has been an encouraging week of play from Booker.

At one point in the second half, UCLA held Northwestern without a field goal for just under 10 minutes. That is an insane stretch of defensive play. Unfortunately, the Bruins were also outscored during that stretch, in large part because the Bruins got complacent. Part of this had to do with the bench playing extended minutes, which was at least good to see given how hard the starters had to play on Tuesday, but this was a sloppy run of play from the Bruins, one that might have cost them if Northwestern was a better team (then again, if Northwestern was a better team I doubt you’d see the bench play that many minutes).

With the win, UCLA remained undefeated at home. More importantly, they did not take a bad loss, which was definitely on the table given the emotions of Tuesday (not to mention this Northwestern team coming off their own victory against Southern Cal this week). It got ugly down the stretch, but the Bruins played enough good basketball to win handily.

Go Bruins!

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