Monday, February 2, 1998
Washington bites at heels of UCLA
M.BASKETBALL 30-point lead slips away, but resilient Bruins
still manage to win
By Emmanuelle Ejercito
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It’s a good thing that the No. 8 UCLA men’s basketball team had
a 30-point lead to fall back on Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.
For the first 30 minutes, the Bruins (17-3 overall, 7-2 Pac-10)
were seemingly on their way to a blowout victory over Washington as
UCLA played solid basketball – shooting well, passing well,
pressing well and getting defensive stops.
With 11:12 left in the game, the Bruins were up 80-50. But for
the next 10 minutes, the Huskies would outscore UCLA 44-25.
Washington would cut the 30-point lead down to just seven with a
minute and a half to play.
"We just have to try to maintain the lead," J.R. Henderson said.
"I don’t know what the problem is. We just tend to get comfortable
with the lead.
"I think that we would be at our best if we put two halves
together."
However, the Bruins were able to contain the Washington surge
and prevail 105-94 before a home crowd of 11,242.
The win, coupled with Stanford’s 90-87 loss to Arizona State,
puts UCLA in a tie with the Cardinal for second place in the Pac-10
going into the second round of conference play. The Huskies (13-5,
6-3), meanwhile, fall to fourth in the conference.
"This is a huge game for us," senior Toby Bailey said. "I think
if we lost this game, it might of put us out of Pac-10 championship
contention. It’s still going to be hard now with Arizona undefeated
(in conference), but at least we’re still in the hunt."
The Bruins are still in the hunt for their fourth-straight
conference title thanks in part to Bailey’s performance. The senior
recorded his third double-double of the year with 22 points and a
career-high 11 assists. Junior Jelani McCoy also added a
double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
Good ball movement helped to create UCLA’s onslaught of points.
The Bruins had a season-tying high 25 assists with Bailey and
freshman Earl Watson accounting for 22.
"In this game I tried to get a least one assist because I didn’t
have any in the last game," said Watson who had 11 assists and no
turnovers. "I was trying to create more. In this game I got
aggressive, taking more chances."
The first five minutes of the game had UCLA and Husky Todd
MacCulloch trading baskets. However, MacCulloch was called for his
second foul with 14:52 to go in the half. He was taken out of the
game and wouldn’t return until the second half. That’s when the
Bruins went to work. UCLA had a 52-34 lead at intermission with the
help of a 15-3 run.
The Bruins would build up the half-time lead to 30 in the second
half after a Bailey three-pointer. Leading by 22 with 6:25 to go,
UCLA head coach Steve Lavin would go with a smaller lineup
substituting Brandon Loyd and Travis Reed for McCoy and Henderson.
Washington would use its height advantage and hit two consecutive
three-pointers to go on a 12-0 run and reduce the lead to 10 with a
little over four minutes remaining.
"Anytime we take the nucleus out that’s when they blitz us,"
Lavin said. "We have confidence in (the bench), but we can’t have
30-point leads go down to 10 … They just have to keep
working."
Kris Johnson led the Bruins in scoring with 26 points, while
MacCulloch also had 26 for the Huskies. During the 23 minutes
MacCulloch was in the game for Washington, the Huskies outscored
UCLA 67-62. In the other 17 minutes of the game, the Bruins
outscored Washington 43-27.