Second Half Stampede: Bruins Come Back to Crush Buffs, 68-54
Second Half Stampede: Bruins Come Back to Crush Buffs, 68-54
Defense powered UCLA's big second half run that earned them the W.
The UCLA Bruins played three different basketball games tonight en route to a 68-54 win over the Colorado Buffaloes at Pauley Pavilion.
The Bruins maintained a small lead for more than eight and a half of the first twelve minutes of the game. During this part of the game, UCLA never led by more than three points, albeit on four separate occasions.
It was such a small margin that, with 7:41 left in the half, Colorado took the lead and, by the 2:37 mark, the Buffs were up by nine, 29-20. An 8-2 run by the Bruins closed the gap to three, 31-28, at the half.
As the second half began, the Buffaloes continued playing well. In fact, during the first ten minutes of the half, Colorado had increased their back to nine, 44-35.
But from that moment, the Bruins would not allow another Colorado field goal until there was just 45 seconds left in the game. With just over ten minutes left, UCLA went on a 17-0 run to flip the script and take a 52-44 lead.
With 5:41 to go, a foul by Jaylen Clark on a three-point shot by Javon Ruffin ended the scoreless run and cut the Bruins’ lead to five points, 52-47. That’s as close as the Buffs would get as UCLA went on a 13-2 run to increase their lead to 16 points, 65-49, with 1:11 to go.
In the final minute, the Buffaloes were able to score five points to UCLA’s two, but by this point, it didn’t matter and the Bruins’ comeback ended with UCLA’s 13th consecutive win, 68-54.
In the second half, the Bruins forced 13 turnovers, which led to 11 points. Jaime Jaquez led UCLA with 23 points while adding 13 rebounds, five blocks and four steals. Jaylen Clark scored 18 and Tyger Campbell added 11. Adem Bona almost got into double figures with nine points, but he had several blocks at key points in the game that added to UCLA’s momentum.
UCLA heads out to the Desert next week with a game against Arizona State on Thursday at 7:30 pm PT on FS1. Then, they will play Arizona on Saturday morning at 11 am PT on ABC.
Go Bruins!!!
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.
A game of 2 halves, fortunately the 2nd half was mostly Bruins and their tenacity put them over the top. Go Bruins.
So I was telling my fiancé - if ucla takes the lead, they’re not gonna relinquish it. The fact of the matter is, ucla has the talent advantage over colorado, and CO don’t have the talent to play the way they played in the first half deep into the second half…
But aside from that , I dont think ucla played poorly - they got their open shots, they got their spots - ball just didn’t go in. Once the ball started going into the basketball, ucla ran away with the game.
So the way to look at it is: ucla played great for 10 mins only tonight and beat the team that beat Tennessee!