Postgame Talk: UCLA Discards Trojans in 81-62 Romp
The Bruins rode Donovan Dent to another big performance.
Coming off the stunning come-from-behind victory over Illinois on Saturday, there was a degree of uncertainty heading into this game. Would the UCLA Bruins have a hangover from that epic comeback that would spell disaster? Would the Southern Cal Trojans, fresh off their own come-from-ahead loss to Oregon and in desperate need of a win to keep themselves in bubble conversations, play with increased focus and catch UCLA napping? Would UCLA’s poor rebounding and defensive effort short-circuit what has been a pretty potent offensive attack right when the team could ill afford such a situation?
Were we all forgetting that Eric Musselman isn’t a very good coach?
That last question is maybe the most pertinent, because UCLA played a pretty sloppy and lackadaisical game for the most part, and it did not seem to matter, as they still managed to slowly and methodically extend the lead throughout the second half, ultimately prevailing by a final score of 81-62.
Seriously, the UCLA box score is wild to look at compared to so many other games this season. Skyy Clark struggled with some foul trouble, yet despite that, he still managed only four shots in 24 minutes, only one of which was a three-pointer. Tyler Bilodeau had 13 points, but eight of those came in the final 10 minutes, and again, one of the best three-point shooters on the team only took two looks from deep. Trent Perry didn’t shoot a three-pointer at all, and he’s been nails from distance since being inserted into the starting lineup. Xavier Booker had more three-point attempts than UCLA’s three best shooters combined, and Eric Dailey had just as many attempts as those three did (more on him in a second).
But UCLA still shot 35% from three, thanks to an unlikely source: Donovan Dent. Yes, Donovan Dent, who entered this game shooting 16.7% from deep on the season, hit five of his six three-point attempts en route to a 30-point, seven-assist, zero-turnover masterpiece. Dent’s five three-pointers single-handedly raised his three-point percentage to 24.1% on the season, which still isn’t great but speaks more to a growing confidence in his outside shot. That confidence was on full display Tuesday, especially as Southern Cal was forced to guard him more on the perimeter, which opened up a bevy of new attacking options for Dent to manipulate. I’m not expecting Dent to have this kind of shooting performance going forward, but I think he can hit threes at a 35% clip, and if teams are forced to respect his outside shot, then the offense in general opens up even further.
I want to highlight Dent a bit more, in part because I was at a wedding Saturday and didn’t get to write about his performance then, but Dent was sensational in all facets of the game. He was methodical on offense, breaking down the “defense” from the Trojans with the skill of a virtuoso. Southern Cal clearly planned to cut off passing lanes on his drives, but that only combined with UCLA’s offensive shift (more on that in a second) to create better driving lanes for Dent, and Southern Cal was never able to challenge him with an on-ball defender that could keep up. Dent scored a season-high 30 points with only half of those coming from behind the three-point line; he also had five makes inside the arc, including a beautiful teardrop fadeaway to end the first half. Late in the game, the Trojans finally made a defensive adjustment to throw an extra body at Dent to try and get the ball out of his hands quicker, but this just let Dent rack up the assists - five of his seven assists came with less than 10 minutes to go in the game, as Dent consistently found the open Bruin for a basket. Maybe most critically, Dent managed all of this without recording a single turnover; his transition into becoming the perfect Cronin point guard may finally be at an end.
THIS is the Donovan Dent UCLA was expecting to get all season. Maybe it’s a good thing that Dent is starting to peak right as the calendar prepares to turn to March, but UCLA’s ceiling is based in large part on what Dent can do with the ball in his hands. When he is playing at his peak, you get victories over teams like Purdue and Illinois; hell, when he is playing in the ballpark of that peak, this team can go blow-for-blow with an Arizona or Gonzaga. If Dent truly is rounding into form, UCLA goes from an intriguing NCAA Tournament team (which, let’s be honest here: UCLA is basically locked into the tournament now thanks to that Illinois victory) to a team that absolutely no one in the country wants to see early.
Mick Cronin continued utilizing the five-out offense that he switched to against Illinois, and you can see just how effective it can be when it gets humming. UCLA did not take a ton of three-pointers (only 20 compared to 26 for the Trojans), but the threat of shooters opened things up on the interior, where UCLA managed a 32-24 victory in points in the paint despite a size disadvantage. The strategy shift does create some problems, especially when it comes to rebounding; Southern Cal beat UCLA 41-31 on the boards and grabbed a ridiculous 17 offensive rebounds that led to 15 second-chance points. But maybe that’s part of the calculus for Cronin at this point: if there isn’t a way to fix the rebounding at this point, maybe maximizing the offense is the best path forward. So far, it seems to be working.
(PS, this is the main reason Jamerson isn’t playing much post-Michigan State. It’s not a punishment thing so much as a stylistic change. Jamerson is not a threat from the outside while Xavier Booker still very much is, so Cronin is instead maximizing the time his shooters are on the court, which means less time in general for Jamerson.)
Another thing that worked: pulling Eric Dailey when it became clear he didn’t have it. Dailey went back into a funk following a solid game against Illinois, finishing with only a single point and missing all four of his shots from the field. You could see Dailey pressing to score in the first half, and with his shot not falling (and instead falling well short of the basket), Cronin instead turned to his bench more in the second half, which meant Eric Freeney saw increased run and made the most of it. Freeney finished with seven points on 3-5 shooting, but what made him a positive was his willingness to defend while not bogging down the offense. Freeney took the open shots presented to him, but he was more than willing to move the ball along, and that selflessness helped unlock the UCLA offense in the second half; the Bruins shot 58.1% in the second half after shooting just 40.6% in the first. I don’t know how much I really want to see Freeney on the court at this stage of his development - and it appears Freeney is in a rotation with Jamar Brown based on the opponent and what is needed - but if those two can provide solid minutes to cover for a bad Dailey, that would help matters.
Ultimately, none of this really mattered, though, because Eric Musselman is a bad coach and Southern Cal is a bad team.
Seriously, UCLA missed so many bunnies and open looks throughout this game that it is a wonder Southern Cal didn’t win at all. In fact, early on it looked like the Trojans were going to give the Bruins a run for their money, until you realized that Southern Cal was being buoyed by an unreal shooting performance from Chad Baker-Mazara (and by unreal I mean he was throwing up absolute junk that had no business going in) and not much else. Southern Cal is a team lacking identity or any real cohesion; in fact, I imagine this is what people who complain about Cronin-iso ball think UCLA looks like. Alijah Arenas, whose father’s comments launched so many think pieces about why five-stars would rather play for Musselman than Cronin, had as many charges as he did made baskets from the field. There was no rhyme or reason to anything Southern Cal was doing on either end of the court, and the only connective tissue for the entire game was Musselman having his hands on his head, yelling in pain at what was transpiring.
Huh, maybe that’s the true lesson here. We didn’t need to worry about UCLA losing this game at all.
After all, it’s justSC.
Go Bruins!
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Interesting postgame comments from Cronin - ucla coaching staff has been working with Dent on fixing his shot. Apparently he moves his head too much when he shoots and that causes him to lean back on his shots. Hopefully we can see continuous improvement on that front - changing shooting mechanics is not easy when you’re trying to break 18 years of bad habits. I saw a cool stat though - he’s the first player in 30 years to have 40+ points, 20+ assists, and 0 TOs over two games. Clearly he has elite talent so hopefully this upward trend continues.
UCLA doesn’t have anymore potential bad losses on the schedule as the rest of the regular season are all Q1, but they’ve been horrible in the road so hopefully we see that change against Minnesota on Saturday. Speaking of Q1 and Net rankings, I saw a stat on Twitter that ucla has played 5 of the top 6 teams in Net ranking and went 2-3 against them. Which is actually pretty good! Of rhe 3 losses, we played AZ and Gonzaga pretty close but got ran off the court by Michigan. I’m a bit more bullish on the NCAA tournament this week than I was last month
Almost forgot that DD had beaten both UCLA and U$C last season while at UNM, so I'm glad he's with us to help beat U$C again. Great to see the Bruins $3M man continuing to look more poised and confident and now also finding his shot. He's been playing some really clutch basketball the past 2 games, so hope he can continue this high level of play.
Four's Up and Two's Down---Go Bruins!