UCLA Uses Another Second-Half Surge to Beat Stanford 73-64
It was a weird game and we should probably stop acknowledging its existence.
That…certainly was a game.
To be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting going into this game against Stanford. Certainly, the Cardinal have been better than usual of late, with the capstone being a hilarious victory over Arizona last Saturday. But at the same time, UCLA is a different monster at home, so I felt like it wouldn’t matter much how Stanford played because it felt like UCLA would find a way to win regardless. That’s more or less what happened: Stanford came in with a good gameplan, shot 50% from the field, and generated a huge amount of points near the basket, but it ultimately didn’t matter because UCLA decided to turn on the jets over the final few minutes to pull away for a 73-64 victory.
Zoom in on that game, however, and you start to see a lot of weird things. For example, UCLA’s defense was not very good in this game! After a few weeks where the defense looked to be reenergized, the Bruins looked lethargic and slow to react to what was, in all fairness, a very game Stanford attack. Stanford shooting 50% from the field wasn’t due to an unconscious shooting night, but because the Cardinal kept generating open looks, especially near the basket. That’s maybe the biggest red flag to take from this game, as the Bruins got dominated on the inside by a 38-26 margin; usually, it is UCLA that holds that kind of advantage. If there is a benefit to this, it’s that the Bruins at least did not compound the problem by fouling; Adem Bona would ultimately foul out, but the Bruins generally stayed out of foul trouble, which kept Stanford off the foul line.
UCLA’s interior play was a problem when Adem Bona was out as well. Bona managed to play 25 minutes thanks to a particularly clean first half, but there was no real production behind him. Kenneth Nwuba only played four minutes before leaving the game with an apparent groin injury, and Mac Etienne followed up his tremendous performance against Oregon with an absolute clunker here, as clear a sign as any that he probably is not ready to be reliably called upon (there, now that question has been answered for me). The Bruins were forced to go small to close out the game, which fortunately worked out, but it still could not have been a comfortable feeling for Coach Mick Cronin. If Nwuba is out for any length of time, I would imagine Cronin will force-feed Etienne some minutes or look at perhaps playing Jaylen Clark at the five as we’ve seen in the past.
But UCLA’s interior was nothing compared to the play of Tyger Campbell. Campbell has been in a bit of a slump in recent games, but it became a genuine problem here, as Campbell could not get anything going offensively while being a major liability on the defensive end. At one point in a conversation with friend of the site Carlos of the No Truck Stops Podcast (@equitybruin on Twitter), we both realized that Campbell was a ridiculously terrible -23 in +/-. Campbell would eventually recover late with some big baskets, but he still finished at -13. UCLA can afford for him to be bad against a team like Stanford just due to the talent gap, but they’ll need him to pull out of this tailspin in time for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Road Trip next week (to say nothing of the visits from the Arizona schools to end the season).
Luckily for the Bruins, other players stepped up. Jaime Jaquez continued his late-season surge towards a potential Player of the Year victory by scoring 26 points, 17 of which came after halftime. Jaylen Clark similarly is rounding back into form, as he scored 16 points on a wildly efficient 6-9 shooting while playing hounding defense. UCLA also got a huge lift from Dylan Andrews, who played extended minutes while Campbell struggled and helped drag the Bruins back into the game. Andrews did not pop on the stat sheet (he only had three points on 1-2 shooting and one assist) but the energy he brought to the court was huge, as his length and athleticism stymied what Stanford had been doing to Campbell on that end.
At the end, I don’t really know what to make of this game. UCLA played fine, and did what they needed to do to get the win, and maybe that’s all that should matter at this point. There’s red flags, but I don’t know if anyone outside of Arizona is even capable of exploiting them at this point in the season. On to the next one.
Jaime Jaquez led the Bruins with 26 points, nine rebounds, and three assists. Michael Jones led the Cardinal with 15 points.
Three Takeaways
Player of the Game: Dylan Andrews - Perhaps I’m short-changing Jaime Jaquez, who led the Bruins in the big three statistical categories, but this game flipped when Andrews came on the court. Up until halftime, the Cardinal found an easy rhythm on offense, especially as they attacked Tyger Campbell, but Andrews was able to disrupt the Cardinal so thoroughly that the Bruins were able to climb their way back in the game. Maybe this was the light coming on for Andrews, but at the very least this should be a comforting sign for those Bruin fans that are looking toward the future.
Bad Defense Until It Was Good - UCLA played some poor defense throughout this game, especially on the interior as the Cardinal scored 38 points in the paint and shot 50% from the field. But when it needed to tighten up down the stretch, the UCLA defense answered the bell, not letting Stanford score a single point from the 4:59 mark until there were only 42 seconds remaining. In that time, took a one-point lead and stretched it all the way out to 10. That’s championship-level play.
An Interior Problem? - Adem Bona played 25 minutes before ultimately fouling out. He wasn’t the issue, and was probably UCLA’s third-best player behind Jaquez and Jaylen Clark. But Kenneth Nwuba appeared to get injured, and Mac Etienne took several steps back. Not the kind of issues you want to see late in the year from what was already a shaky interior lineup.
The Bruins return to action on Saturday when they take on UC Berkeley. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 PM PT.
Go Bruins!
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One other thing to add that baffles me… there are several talks about should ucla win out this week, could they become the new number 1 ranked team… the part that’s baffling though is that all the pundits still have ucla as a number 2 or number three seed in the tournament. I am still of the impression that ucla is fine and can win a natty this year regardless of seeding. It’s just so obnoxious that all of these experts are spouting about number one rankings for teams as follows
Alabama - a 24 point loss to a 13 loss team Oklahoma
Houston - a 1 point home loss to 13 loss temple
Purdue - 1-3 in the last 4 games with a 14 pt loss to Maryland
At least Kansas has only lost to ranked opponents. But three of those losses were by more than 13 points.
UCLA doesn’t have as many q1 wins for sure. They need to win against Arizona to close out the season to solidify my opinion they can win a natty. They also need to win a natty to shut up all the dumb ass experts out there. It’s been too long ucla… make me eat crow for my comments earlier and shut them all up
Definitely a strange game. Bailey was pretty awful but I’d hope it’s because he injured his ankle and his first step of power clearly wasn’t there.
Let’s just hope that nwuba and Bailey heal up nicely over the next three weeks as this is the biggest long term problem in my opinion.
The bruins played much better defense to close out the game. Still a few lapses in judgement, but ucla played the last 6-7 minutes with a lineup we never expected to see. They also played large chunks of time with a new lineup. One that I particularly like most was the Clark, jaquez, Andrews, singleton, bona lineup. That appeared to be the lineup that completely baffled stanford. They couldn’t figure out how to score with those five players on the court which is what triggered the first big run in the second half for the bruins