UCLA Collapses Against Southern Cal Again, This Time Loses 77-64

The offense is officially a problem.

The Bruins need to figure some things out over their break. (Photo credit: @UCLAMBB)

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If I’m Mick Cronin, I might consider a new halftime approach.

For the second meeting in a row, the UCLA Bruins took a substantial lead into halftime against Southern Cal, and for the second game in a row, the Bruins spent the entire second half throwing all that good work in the trash, playing lackluster defense and continuing their offensive woes en route to a 77-64 loss.

I’m not sure what stood out the most in this trash heap of a second half, but I do want to talk about the offense first because we are officially in problem territory. UCLA shot 35.7% in this game, but more importantly, was a miserable 8-27 (29.6%) in that all-important second half when Southern Cal turned up the pressure. The Bruins seemed bothered by the length of the Trojans, which is a worrying trend when you take last week into account, with Tyger Campbell again looking flustered on his usual selection of runners and Jaime Jaquez putting up a thoroughly-average performance in a big rivalry game. Southern Cal seemingly decided to put the onus on David Singleton to beat them, forcing the senior into the most shot attempts on the team, and for the most part this worked, as Singleton shot an inefficient 5-14 from the field, consistently looking like he struggled to adjust. Most distressing has to be the play of Jaylen Clark, who has fallen off a cliff these past few weeks and may have put up his worst performance in this one, going 0-7 on the field and missing a variety of bunnies near the basket.

The scary thing is this doesn’t appear to be a schematic issue. Just like with the Arizona game last week, UCLA was able to generate a lot of open looks at the basket, and especially in the first half used their trademark effort to get a lot of extra looks at the basket through second-chance points. Simply put, the shots just aren’t falling. If you throw in the out-of-character turnovers, I’m willing to chalk a lot of these issues up to the team pressing too much on offense and not playing loose. I don’t know if this is a symptom of the increased defensive focus or just a lack of focus at the midpoint of the conference slate, but an extended break followed by a visit from one of the worst teams in the conference in Washington is coming at the exact right time.

The defense was not great in this one. I think we’re starting to see the limitations of the team’s defense, specifically that it can struggle when the players are not completely locked in. UCLA has more than a few poor defenders throughout the lineup (especially Campbell, who the Trojans targeted relentlessly in the second half) and has gotten by thanks to an excellent defensive effort from everyone involved. When that effort is lacking like it did tonight, then things break down. Jaime Jaquez was one of the prime culprits on this front today, as he constantly made bad switches and looked disinterested in the entire concept of competing on that end. Jaylen Clark was not his usual disruptive self, and poor Adem Bona was left trying to clean up a lot of messes.

You don’t need advanced stats to tell you that the effort in the second half was lacking. Southern Cal scored 52 points in that half, almost doubling what UCLA was able to put up. That’s embarrassing and should cause a lot of players to look in the mirror and reevaluate the things they’re doing on both ends of the court. The Trojans scored 1.677 points per possession in the second half, which is absurd and speaks to how bad the Bruins were.

If there is a big positive to take from this game, it’s the return of Amari Bailey, and Bailey probably had the best overall game of any Bruin. You could see he was a bit tentative in his first game back in a month, but the effort was clearly there and he did score in double-digits. I have to imagine he slides back into the starting lineup next week, which should help fix some things for the rotation. I say that because Cronin really did not utilize the bench outside of Bailey. Will McClendon saw all of three minutes while Dylan Andrews, who the Bruins desperately could have used for his energy alone, did not see the court at all. Interestingly, Mac Etienne was finally the first big man off the bench for Cronin, but he did not look great, and ultimately Kenneth Nwuba would beat him out for backup minutes in this game.

Much like the team, I don’t really have the energy to finish this off with a Three Takeaways like normal. But I would like to take this opportunity to talk some Bruin fans off the ledge. Yes, the Bruins have now lost two in a row after running off a streak of 14 straight wins. This is about the same time every year that the Bruins start to look a bit of a mess before they refocus for the final stretch. I don’t think there is any long-term problems that we’re seeing at the moment, though there are some red flags to consider for March. That said, we’re still over a month away from that, and there’s plenty of basketball still to play. Despite these past few games, UCLA is still in the driver’s seat for the conference, as they’re still a game up on everyone else. The margin for error has closed a bit, but that’s why you have a margin in the first place.

Jaime Jaquez led the team with 15 points and eight rebounds. Tyger Campbell led the team with seven assists. Boogie Ellis led the Trojans with 31 points.

The Bruins will take the next week off to refocus before hosting Washington next Thursday. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 PM PT.

Go Bruins.

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