This post was updated Feb. 6 at 10:01 p.m.
Even without their two rotation big men, the Bruins found a way to hang around for most of the first half.
All it took was the Trojans getting hot from deep to squash their hopes of stealing a shorthanded road win.
No. 21 UCLA men’s basketball (13-4, 9-2 Pac-12) lost to USC (15-3, 9-2) 66-48 at the Galen Center on Saturday, despite trailing its crosstown rival 21-18 with 3:20 left in the opening frame. That was all without redshirt junior forwards Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, as the former missed the game with a right ankle injury and the latter was out because of personal reasons.
The lack of a presence underneath the basket caught up with the Bruins, as they were outrebounded 40-33 on the night – their worst rebounding margin since March 7, 2019, versus Colorado.
UCLA’s wings were forced to do most of the work on the offensive glass, with sophomore guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., sophomore guard Johnny Juzang and freshman guard Jaylen Clark combining for nine of the team’s 13 offensive boards.
“When you don’t have your two main big guys, obviously guys are going to have to step up and pick up the slack from the rebounding that they bring,” Jaquez said. “We were not as big as them, so we’ve got to get in there and try to get rebounds.”
With Hill and Riley out, the Bruins had 40 minutes per game of production to replace. Redshirt sophomore forward Kenneth Nwuba got the start in Riley’s place and freshman forward Mac Etienne filled in for Hill off the bench.
Etienne enrolled at UCLA in January after wrapping up high school a semester early, planning to redshirt the season. Coach Mick Cronin said the young big man would have played Saturday regardless of the absences, and he finished with eight points, five rebounds and two blocks in his collegiate debut.
“(Etienne) was on a mission to get himself on the floor,” Cronin said. “You can see that he has a tremendous amount of potential.”
But UCLA was already getting outrebounded 22-15 when it trailed by one possession late in the first half. It was USC’s 3-point shooting that helped it stretch its lead to double digits heading into the break, drilling three unanswered in the waning minutes of the period.
While Ethan Anderson did not hit any of those three 3s, he knocked down three in the second half, posting a career-high 19 points in the process. The guard scored 11 points in a three-minute stretch after the Bruins closed the gap to single digits midway through the second period, and the Trojans never led by fewer than 12 for the rest of the night.
Anderson’s torrid shooting was not something UCLA was fully prepared for, according to redshirt sophomore guard Tyger Campbell, who credited him for catching the Bruins off guard Saturday night.
“We went into the game and our scouting report was something different, and all credit to him,” Campbell said. “He hit some really good shots. He’s a good player.”
In its worst offensive output since Feb. 21, 2015, UCLA had just one player score in double digits – Juzang, who dropped 13 points on 21 field goal attempts. Juzang also led the Bruins with 13 rebounds but finished with a team-worst -22 plus/minus.
UCLA finished the night shooting 33.9% from the field and 15.8% from deep.
“You’re not winning the game scoring 48 points,” Cronin said. “We got off enough (shots) to win, but we didn’t come close to making enough to give ourselves a chance, not against a good team.”
UCLA has now lost three straight games at the Galen Center, and it was unable to avenge its season-ending loss to USC at the buzzer in 2020. The Bruins also ceded first place in the Pac-12 to the Trojans after Saturday’s loss, a position they had held a share of since conference play began in December.
