KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior forward Matt
Barnes celebrates during the closing seconds of the game
as the Bruins go on to defeat the No.1 ranked Kansas Jayhawks,
87-77. UCLA 87 Kansas 77
By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Funny.
Looking back at the No. 11 UCLA men’s basketball
team’s 87-77 win over top-ranked Kansas on Saturday,
it’s easy to forget that the Jayhawks pulled to within three
with less than two minutes remaining in the contest.
In the final stretch, the game was actually a game.
Memories suggest the contrary.
For some reason, Jayhawk forward Drew Gooden completing a
three-point play to close the deficit to 80-77 with 1:42 left
doesn’t immediately register in one’s mind when
recollecting the events of the nationally-televised duel.
Perhaps it’s because of the 10-point differential in the
final score, because the first half was so lopsided, because Matt
Barnes was so bloody brilliant (again), and because the capacity
crowd of 12,280, some of which eventually flooded onto the Pauley
hardwood, was so loud throughout the entire game. Combined, these
concepts and images conjure an illusion of complete Bruin
domination.
EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior Matt
Barnes fights with a Kansas player for the ball.
For Bruin head coach Steve Lavin, none of that mattered. What
mattered was that his team was able to win following a loss to USC
two days before.
“It’s nice when you can bounce back after a
disappointing and discouraging loss with a good performance,”
said Lavin, whose team improved to 12-3 on the season and dropped
Kansas to 13-2. “I was most impressed with our kids’
resiliency.”
Resilient they were, especially Barnes, who tallied a game-high
27 points.
After the Bruins squelched his career-high 34 points in the USC
game last Thursday, Barnes came out gunning against the Jayhawks.
Gooden, Kansas’ All-American forward, couldn’t keep
pace with Barnes, who proved that the range he displayed against
USC was due to skill and not luck, hitting two of his three
first-half three-point attempts. And whenever Gooden tried to
challenge him on the perimeter, Barnes dashed by him and went
straight to the hoop.
KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior Billy
Knight draws contact against Kansas in Saturday’s
upset.
Barnes displayed some defensive aptitude as well. With 6:27 left
until halftime, Barnes intercepted a Kansas pass at half court and
took the ball down for a windmill dunk. The crowd came to its feet
and began stomping in rhythm.
Barnes’ 18 first-half points on 7-of-10 shooting gave the
Bruins a 46-35 edge heading into the intermission.
“Matt is playing tremendous basketball,” Lavin said.
“A lot of people feel that kids don’t get better in our
program. It feels good to see someone like Billy Knight or Matt
Barnes step up.”
“He’s playing great,” added Bruin guard Rico
Hines. “Hopefully, people around America saw him and will
give him his props.”
EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff UCLA fans go ecstatic during
UCLA’s victory over Kansas.
Kansas, as the score indicated, was struggling. The Jayhawks,
forced to play at a quick tempo that favored UCLA, committed 16
turnovers and shot only 34.4 percent from the field in the first
half.
Gooden, their leader, was only 2-of-6 shooting for six points.
His highly-touted frontcourt mate, Nick Collison, was doing even
worse, registering only two points.
“We got our tails kicked in the first half,” Kansas
head coach Roy Williams said. “We played as badly as we had
all year. UCLA had a lot to do with that.”
The start of the second half offered little promise for the
Jayhawks. True freshman point guard Cedric Bozeman appeared fully
recovered from his early-season knee injury and ran the UCLA
offense efficiently. He extended the Bruin lead to 15 with 14:03 to
go by cutting into the lane for an easy two.
But Kansas crept forward, quietly but steadily, like death.
Gooden found his rhythm, scoring 16 of his 22 points in the
second half. He was complimented by the outside shooting of Jayhawk
guards Kirk Hinrich and Jeff Boschee, who finished with 17 and 14
points, respectively.
Soon, Kansas was down only three.
They got close, but no closer, as Knight made six free throws in
the final 1:05. Knight had 20 points in the contest.
When the game-ending buzzer sounded, the UCLA student section
emptied out onto the court.
“Everyone was just playing balls-out,” said junior
forward Jason Kapono, who scored only 10 points but grabbed seven
rebounds. “I thought that on Thursday (against USC), even
though the guys played well, we got punked. We are trying to change
that. We had to play with passion and fire.”
And the goal now?
To be able to duplicate the effort each time out, the Bruins
said.
“We have a long way to go,” Barnes said. “The
win shows our potential, what we can do. It’s frustrating
that we can beat the No. 1 team, but couldn’t win the
conference game (against USC).”