Mistakes plague the Bruins

Mistakes plague the Bruins

By Jon Gold
Inside UCLA blog
The Los Angeles Daily News
February 15, 2010 4:50 AM

A loss is a loss is a loss, but the UCLA men's basketball team exited the locker room on Sunday night at the Galen Center looking like a different team than when they were crushed by the Trojans at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 16.

After that 67-46 debacle, the Bruins were more shell-shocked than anything, almost dumbfounded by the biggest loss ever to the Trojans at Pauley Pavilion. They were sheepish, ashamed, almost sullen.

On Sunday night, after a 68-64 USC win that was decided with less than a minute left, Malcolm Lee was angry. Maybe a little dejected, but more irritated than anything.

"It's frustrating because that first game, they just came and just took it - this game, I felt that we fought, but we had a lot of mistakes on our end that were controllable," Lee said. "We can only do the things that we can control, and we didn't do a good job on them."

And the award for understatement of the year goes to...

UCLA committed 20 turnovers and shot just 24-for-61 from the field, a 39.3 percent clip, and just 7-of-26 on 3-pointers.

When USC seemed vulnerable on the perimeter, the Bruins missed the wide-open shot.
When the Trojans gave up the post, UCLA flubbed the layup.
When there was a chance to close the gap, the Bruins widened it.

Now UCLA stands at 6-6 in Pac-10 play and 11-13 overall, wondering how a 21-rebound advantage could translate to a loss, how effort and will and desire could spell L-O-S-S.

"It's easier said than done, I guess," Nelson said. "We definitely came out and played as hard as we could tonight. We have to continue to correct our mistakes as much as possible."

There certainly were mistakes, turnovers of every flavor.
Vanilla, as in simply poor passes.
Chocolate, as in blatant offensive fouls.
Strawberry, as in having the ball ripped from their hands.

"One individual can hurt the whole team, but if we're all not working as a unit, that's when we start to get more turnovers collectively," Roll said. "Late in the game, they're running sets and they're running critically the little things - sealing here, getting a back-cut there. The little things, they turn into big things at the end of the game."

Never were the little things more glaring than a three-minute stretch at the end of the game.

Down by four points after a Tyler Honeycutt free throw with 3:51 left, UCLA missed five shots and turned the ball over three times as the Trojans increased their lead to 11.

"It can be a lot of things - if a guy doesn't set a pick, if someone's not sealing right, if the passer needed to know that they needed to break a play," Lee said. "Everybody scouts us; just like we know USC's offense real well, they know our offense real well. They were just overplaying a lot, and they did a real good job to force the turnovers. The momentum got on their side and the crowd got on their side."