Postgame Talk: UCLA Cannot Overcome Mackey Hijinks, Lose to Purdue 76-66

The Bruin defense has gone missing over the past few games.

Tyler Bilodeau (Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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I have a group chat that I usually sit in throughout UCLA games. It’s the usual stuff you would expect, with everyone living and dying on every piece of the action. But near the end of the game, one of the members said something that stood out as a pretty good explanation for what happened in this game:

“It’s impossible to win a game on the road in this conference, especially if you can’t get close to an even whistle.”

That’s the long and short of it. The final stats would make it seem like the whistle was fairly even, with UCLA committing 18 fouls to 17 by Purdue. But anyone watching this game was well aware that by the 6:29 mark of the second half, UCLA had committed eight fouls to only three by the Boilermakers. That kind of foul discrepancy can change the entire game, especially if one team is allowed to play physical while the other gets called for ticky-tack touch fouls. The referees called four fouls in the final two minutes on Purdue to even things up, but at that point it was too little too late.

I hate getting on the officials, but in this case, they ruined what had been a really good game between the two teams. UCLA came out flat to start this game, keyed by a ridiculous five turnovers in the first four minutes (with four of those coming in the first two minutes) and at one point found themselves down by 10 points. It is a testament to this team’s resolve that they clawed their way back into the game, going on a solid run to end the half only down two points and taking a small lead early in the second half. From there, we had a back-and-forth game between the two teams that felt like a tournament game until Purdue was able to feed off the impressive Mackey Arena crowd and string together a series of shots to pull ahead for good.

But again, Purdue was even in position to do that because the referees continued to allow Purdue to stick around during that middle section. Trey Kaufman-Renn was the biggest beneficiary of that whistle, and his game logs are ridiculous; basically, any game he is allowed to get away with things, the Boilermakers win, and if he gets anything close to a tight whistle, they lose. Kaufman-Renn was able to be as physical as he wanted to against UCLA’s interior, constantly throwing his elbow and shoulders around and getting rewarded for it, and there was nothing the Bruins could do about it.

Well, there was one thing they could have done, and this is as good a time as any to address the Spaniard in the room. Aday Mara got all of 1:30 of non-garbage game-time here, and it is hard to say he deserved much more than that. Purdue is not a great matchup for him, with a lot of speed at both the guard and interior spots, and Mara was a disaster defensively every time he was on the court. Interestingly, Mara was not hedging nearly as hard as he usually does, and that did seem to let Purdue get downhill in a hurry. It seemed as if the coaching staff was concerned about the passing ability of Purdue guard Braden Smith, but by offering a more token hedge, it allowed Smith to still dictate terms in the pick-and-roll. You either have to hard hedge to throw off the rhythm of the initial pick (and have good backside help on the roll, something UCLA has struggled with in recent weeks) or you play a drop coverage and live with Smith rising into shots off the bounce, and given his struggles in recent weeks, that would have seemed the best potential option. In either case, Purdue presented a terrible matchup for Mara, and William Kyle did prove to be the better option in the non-garbage minutes that we saw from the bigs.

And yet.

I do think Mara should have gotten more run in this one, and I am still utterly baffled by Mick Cronin’s decision to continually look at the 7’3” sophomore and decide he is more of a matchup option for select nights. I repeat myself, but Mara is the matchup problem, and Cronin seemingly refuses to recognize that fact. Now, I will state that it is not clear Mara would have had more of a positive impact had he played more - I think it is just as likely he would have spent the entire game getting forearm-shivved by Kaufman-Renn with no foul called - but at this point he has more than earned the right to try.

The UCLA defense in general was a problem, especially late in the game when effort led to a bevy of open looks for the Boilermakers. Maybe it was the travel, maybe it was the atmosphere, but as the game wore on late, the Bruins on the court just got way too lackadaisical in their effort, failing to close out consistently on shooters and not attacking rebounds, or giving up weak turnovers because of laziness (looking right at Eric Dailey here). UCLA does not have a host of exceptional individual defenders - Dylan Andrews is good on the ball and Kobe Johnson can play some good defense, while Aday Mara is 7’3” and will continue to be 7’3” for the rest of the season - and thus must get by with team defense. There are times when UCLA plays good team defense and looks locked in, such as the run they went on to close the gap at the end of the first half. But when the defense gets lazy, it allows good teams to take advantage, and that’s exactly what Purdue did to pull away. The Boilermakers ended up with 16 second-chance points, which is impressive considering they only had seven offensive rebounds, meaning they scored over two points per offensive rebound. Hard to win games when that happens.

UCLA’s offense continues to be fine and is far from the problem here, and the offense in general was pretty good in this game. The biggest miss for me was the amount of shots Lazar Stefanovic took, as he finished with the second-most attempts on the team at 10 but only made two of them. Most of Stefanovic’s shots seemed off-balance and rushed, which felt odd for someone who is normally much more composed. I was also disappointed with Eric Dailey in this one and felt he could have asserted himself more, but it seemed he got hit a few times early and that dissuaded him from mixing things up inside. Tyler Bilodeau had the hot hand for most of this game, finishing with a team-high 15 points and also leading the team with seven rebounds, but given his struggles defensively, that likely equated to a wash.

It might not look like it from the box score, but I felt Dylan Andrews had a pretty solid game outside of a few rushed shots late in the second half, throwing some good passes and hitting his pull-up elbow jumper with some consistency. On the flip side, Skyy Clark was not very effective, which at least excited me to see Trent Perry get extended minutes in this game. Perry missed his only shot of the game, but he hit all four of his free throws and grabbed three rebounds, so an encouraging performance from him in a hostile environment.

I said a few games ago that I have shifted how I look at this season, moving into more of a long-term view of the current roster, and on that end there is still a lot to like here. That said, the Bruins have two more regular-season games to get guys experience, and given the relative weakness of Northwestern and Southern Cal, this would be as good a time as any to feed Aday Mara and Trent Perry as many minutes as possible so they can be ready for the Big Ten Tournament and March Madness. The roster tops out as a Sweet Sixteen team as it looks currently, but given the state of things last season, that’s nothing to sneeze at, and with a good chunk of this roster poised to return next year, is something to build on.

Is that maybe too happy of a note to end on for this game? Perhaps, but with the women’s team facing Southern Cal tomorrow, we need all the positive vibes we can get.

Go Bruins.

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