Postgame Talk: UCLA Finally Shows Effort, But Not Enough as Arizona Wins 69-65
The Bruins got two terrible nights from their starting guards exactly when they could ill afford one.
There’s a bit of a good news, bad news situation regarding UCLA’s loss to Arizona tonight.
On the good news front, it does appear this UCLA team is not the miserable bunch that looked like a nightmare to start the season. The Bruins came out with a ton of focus and looked like a team that had some talent. For the most part, that continued throughout the game, and you have to credit Arizona for making the plays down the stretch to win a tight game. Both teams have a ton of talent and look like they will be competitive teams throughout the year, so that’s a positive.
But Arizona was able to pull away from this game because UCLA’s senior guards could not figure things out over the course of the game, and you can directly point to the performances of Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark as the major difference in this game. In his first taste of high-pressure basketball at the P4 level, Dent massively struggled, finishing the night with 11 points on an inefficient 5-16 shooting night, missing a variety of shots in the lane. Dent did finish with eight assists, but he also had three turnovers, and he looked a step slow throughout the game, perhaps a sign that the muscle strain that held him out against West Georgia was a bigger deal than UCLA let on. Clark was worse, finishing with nine points on 3-11 shooting while also having a tough time on defense. We’ve seen Clark step up in these big moments last year, so to see him struggle this much was hard to watch, and continues a rough opening of the season for him.
Beyond that, UCLA was plagued by a ridiculous number of turnovers and some atrocious defense from Tyler Bilodeau down the stretch to help seal the game for the Wildcats. On the turnover front, UCLA finished with 16 turnovers, and many of them were unforced errors. 13 of those turnovers came in the first half, which erased all the good the Bruins did on offense (as a team, UCLA shot 43.5% from the field) and on defense (holding Arizona to 36.7% from the field). The Bruins were especially good at containing freshman phenoms Koa Peat, who was limited to seven points on 2-5 shooting (with four fouls in the game), and Brayden Burries, who finished with five points on a miserable 1-9 shooting night, but it was bench player Anthony Dell’Orso who made the Bruins play. Dell’Orso, who averages 11.6 points on the year, went off for 20 points, including 4-7 from three, as he constantly made the UCLA guards pay for crashing down on defense.
That said, UCLA’s defensive strategy was the correct one, and credit to Arizona for not doing what they usually do, which is fall in love with a three-point shot that rarely hits. The Wildcats finished shooting 31.9% from deep (6-19), and were more selective than normal. What killed UCLA was the interior defense, especially from Tyler Bilodeau, who was repeatedly killed by the Arizona offense. Bilodeau’s stat line on offense is going to look nice thanks to a team-leading 19 points on 7-10 shooting, but he finished with only two rebounds on the night, and his lack of athleticism was repeatedly targeted by Arizona down the stretch; the game-sealing plays by Arizona involved the Wildcats pulling him into pick-and-roll action and taking advantage of his foot speed to get downhill in a hurry. Jaden Bradley has an average night for the most part, but he scored seven of his 16 points in the last 2:30 of the game to seal the win.
The irony of this game is that Bilodeau has rapidly become the biggest problem for Mick Cronin to solve, when it appeared before the season that his former position was going to be a bigger issue. This is not to say Xavier Booker had a phenomenal game, but he was more than servicable, and for a big man really learning the position for the first time against a bevy of more experienced posts on Arizona, Booker more than held his own on both ends, finishing with seven rebounds and 10 points. Steven Jamerson, despite some brain farts, also had a solid defensive outing (three steals, one block), which is all he is being asked to do. Meanwhile, moving Bilodeau away from the post has done nothing to solve the problem of his defense; if anything, the move has made the problem worse. The irony is that Eric Dailey is better suited for that four-spot, but he has also moved up the lineup to accommodate Bilodeau and is essentially forced into playing the three thanks to UCLA’s lack of depth at that spot (I think I would enjoy watching Jamar Brown and Dailey share the court, but that’s just me). In any case, it is not the bigs who will be the limiter on how far UCLA goes this season, but rather whether Tyler Bilodeau can get to net neutral on defense.
I do think, overall, that this was an encouraging game from UCLA. Yes, the Bruins lost to the hated Wildcats, and that never feels good, but they played with intensity and were competitive the entire time, which was not something I expect many fans felt was possible coming into this game. Mick Cronin teams, as we are so often want to mention here, tend to improve as the season progresses, and I think you would be hard pressed to get another game where UCLA’s starting backcourt plays that poorly again.
On to the next one.
Go Bruins.
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Not sure what point im trying to make, but I want to say with a bball team that’s is better than the fball team and Intuit Dome being approx where Sofi is…. it felt like Arizona had more fans in the building than we did. I get it was a neutral site game, but its across the street from our home football stadium.
I want to see Donovan Dent look for his shot more. He came to ucla as a highly heralded player, but he’s deferring to much.
Last year he shot 41% from 3! This year, it’s like he’s allergic to taking shots that are more than 10 feet away from the basket. The guy is 6’2, what’s he doing trying to shoot over players half a foot taller than him?? Arizona started the game double teaming him, but once it was clear Dent wasn’t looking for his shot, they allowed him to drive and dared him to shoot over the taller AZ players and the result was, as Dimitri mentioned, a terribly inefficient 5-16.
And in the Pepperdine game thread I mentioned that Skyy Clark making boneheaded plays near the end of games gave them an opportunity to make the game closer in the final score. Same thing here, he basically dribbled out the last 20 seconds, instead of looking to pass or shoot.
I was impressed by the defensive effort - 69 might be the lowest Arizona will score for the rest of the season. But the offense needs to catch up to the defense if ucla wants to make a run