Reeves Nelson goes for a layup against Pepperdine. Nelson finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds in the win. UCLA will take on Pacific tonight, with the winner advancing to the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden. Photo Alexa SmahlUCLA men’s basketball rides over the Pepperdine Waves, 79-69
By RYAN ESHOFF
The Daily Bruin
Updated: 1:44 AM
Pacific
Tonight, 8:30 p.m.
Pauley Pavilion
ESPNU
A trip to New York for the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off is on the line for the Bruins in this second-round matchup.
Sometimes Reeves Nelson just can’t decide what position he wants to play.
In a short stretch to start the second half, the ever-active sophomore forward led a fast break and dished out an assist to a cutting Lazeric Jones. Then, he stuffed what appeared to be a surefire Pepperdine dunk. Finally, he finished a three-point play to give the Bruins a double-digit lead, one that they wouldn’t relinquish in defeating Pepperdine 79-69 in an NIT Season Tip-Off opening-round game.
“I really have a lot of confidence in Reeves with the ball in his hands,” coach Ben Howland said.
Nelson’s play was part of a 26-2 run by UCLA (2-0) that spanned both halves, and propelled the Bruins from being down eight points to being ahead by double-digits.
Four nights after getting off to a blistering start against Cal State Northridge, UCLA was less energetic and had trouble finding a rhythm. In the early going, the outside shooting of sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt was the only thing keeping the Bruins in the game against Pepperdine’s zone defense. Honeycutt hit a pair of early three-pointers and led all scorers with 12 points in the first half.
Following the game, the Bruins attributed some of their slow start to being out of sync as a result of the night’s schedule, which had them playing the second game of a double-header and thus unable to go through their standard pre-game regimens.
“Our routine was kind of messed up,” Nelson said.
After the Waves (0-2) built their lead to 34-26 – their largest of the night – the Bruins put together a 10-0 flurry to go into the half up two. They continued their scorching play into the second, finally capitalizing on fast-break opportunities and clamping down on Pepperdine’s dribble penetration.
“We were getting too lazy on defense,” Honeycutt said. “Once we started getting stops we got easy transition points, and they weren’t able to get back into the zone.”
Nelson finished with 20 points on eight-of-10 shooting from the field. He also had 11 assists and received a loud ovation from the home crowd when he was subbed out with two and a half minutes to go.
Much to the delight of the Pauley Pavilion crowd, freshman center Joshua Smith began to assert his will about midway through the second half. Smith scored on four consecutive possessions, often having to grab multiple rebounds before finishing. All 13 of his points came in the second half as the Bruins fed him the ball time and again.
“I was just more aggressive (in the second half),” Smith said. “In the first half I wasn’t really asking for the ball and demanding it. The more we get it inside, the more opportunities will open up.”
With the win, UCLA advances to the second round of the tournament Tuesday night against Pacific, a 64-53 winner over Nevada on Monday. In their win, the Tigers got 15 points from senior forward Sam Willard and pulled away in the second half after trailing by one at halftime.
The winner of that matchup will advance to the semifinals in New York City next week.
UCLA will be without junior guard Malcolm Lee, who left the game in the first half with a left-ankle injury and did not return. He was taken to the hospital, but X-rays were negative.
Without a top perimeter threat, UCLA will likely see plenty of the zone defense that Pacific flashed during its game and that Pepperdine excelled at in the first half.
“Hopefully we’ll handle that better (on Tuesday),” Howland said.
_______
SCOOP DREAMS: The ups and downs of a young team
After a slow start in the first half, the Bruins picked up the pace to win against Pepperdine, 79-69
By ELI SMUKLER
The Daily Bruin
Updated: 1:41 AM
The UCLA men’s basketball team had a little for everyone in its first game of the NIT Tip-Off Tournament, a 79-69 win over Pepperdine on Monday night.
The first 15 minutes of the contest were for the skeptics. For those of you who still haven’t recovered from last season’s disappointments, that first bit was meant to give you some bullets for your negativity gun.
You saw an offense that can’t create for itself and a defense that’s too slow to catch up from a crossover dribble. Expect plenty of stretches like that this season.
The rest of the game though, that was for you believers out there.
Trailing the school from Malibu 34-26 with the first half disappearing, UCLA picked up the intensity and showed why this Bruin team will win games this year.
The 26-2 run they peeled off to right the ship is something that maybe they would not have accomplished last season amid all the various future transfers when they still wore the blue and gold.
According to sophomore forward Reeves Nelson, that comeback may have been the increased camaraderie that this team keeps talking about playing out before our eyes. Nelson said his teammates picked him up in the locker room after he “played pretty crappy in the first half.”
“I do feel more comfortable with this team this year because these guys are all my friends, not just my teammates,” he said.
The Bruins are a young team, and young teams are known to cause some heart attack moments. Monday’s game was more of just an irregular heart murmur, but by salvaging the game and avoiding the upset, UCLA showed a glimpse of its upside.
“We are going to have periods like we had in the first half,” coach Ben Howland said. “I was just happy how we rebounded from that.”
The bounce back, which started at the tail end of the first half and lasted late into the second when Pauley Pavilion fans began heading for the exits, was about returning to the game plan.
The Bruins began to hit the fast break hard, like Howland keeps preaching to them, not that they need his motivation. Then, they crashed to the basket hard on the zone with Nelson, who finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds, leading the way.
“In the first half, we weren’t really pushing as much as we wanted to because we weren’t really getting that many stops,” Nelson said. “Once we focused on that we really broke the game open.”
Tonight, UCLA will face Pacific with a chance at Madison Square Garden on the line, but they will have just eight scholarship players to help their cause.
If serious, the ankle injury suffered by starting guard Malcolm Lee will be quite a burden for this team’s skinny shoulders. When the Bruins were struggling to penetrate Pepperdine’s zone defense, that’s when they needed the stop-and-pop mentality that Lee seems to have developed recently.
Even without him though, UCLA’s other playmakers stepped up.
In addition to Nelson, his teammate forward Tyler Honeycutt added 16 points and whipped some mighty sweet passes to his teammates.
With a team like this, it will be hard to say whether you’ll get either heads or tails of its coin on a given night. Some nights you might even get a little of both.
_______
UCLA MEN'S BASKETBALL: Bruins get a grip in victory over Pepperdine
By Jon Gold, Staff Writer
Pasadena Star-News
Posted: 11/15/2010 11:08:23 PM PST
LOS ANGELES - As the UCLA men's basketball team attempts to turn over a new leaf after last season's 14-18 disaster, coach Ben Howland has just one request.
A new leaf, fine.
Just don't turn over the basketball.
The Bruins struggled with ball control in their season-opening, 33-point victory over Cal State Northridge, and the erratic passing continued against Pepperdine on Monday night at Pauley Pavilion.
For one half.
UCLA had 10 first-half turnovers but settled down toward the end of the half and went on a brilliant run, eventually closing out the Waves 79-69 in the first game of the NIT Season Tip-Off West Regional.
The Bruins went on an 8-0 run to close the first half and take a 36-34 lead, then opened the second half with an 18-2 run.
What spurred the lightning-quick reversal of fortune?
Drastically better passing.
"We had a bunch of miscues; we had a big lead and we had a couple really bad turnovers," Howland said after the victory over CSUN.
"Three-on-one, four-on-two, that we have got to finish. But we're going to have a lot of mistakes playing games this early after 22 practices. That's not something that surprises me."
What does surprise Howland?
Small forward Tyler Honeycutt's role in the sloppiness.
Honeycutt had 16 points and six rebounds but a game-high seven turnovers against the Matadors, and he had four more in the first half against Pepperdine, finishing with five.
However, he had 16 points and four assists, and teammate Reeves Nelson led all scorers with 20 and had 11 rebounds.
Howland had a chat with Honeycutt after the victory over the Matadors about his turnovers.
"Yeah, I did it in front of you guys right after the game," Howland said. "He knows; Tyler's a smart kid. He had those three really good passes early in the game; he had three assists in our first five possessions. He knows, and he's got to go for less home runs and more base hits.
"Then once in a while you'll get a home run. We're UCLA."
Howland sure makes it seem as if he knows where UCLA remains in the national college basketball landscape.
When asked if he was surprised that the Bruins were chosen to host a preseason NIT regional after the team collapsed to 14-18 last season, Howland was succinct and to the point.
"No. We're UCLA," Howland said during a conference call on Sunday with reporters. "These things are scheduled in advance. It's not like this was just done in the last six months. This was done years ago."
Up Next
UCLA advances to the second round of the preseason NIT to face the University of the Pacific, which defeated Nevada in the early game, 64-53.
Forward Sam Willard - who scored 23 points in the Tigers' 66-61 victory at UTEP in their season opener - led all scorers with 15 points and also had 15 rebounds, and teammate Demetrece Young had 14 points.
Pacific trailed the Wolf Pack 32-31 at halftime, but went on a furious run and outscored Nevada 33-21 in the second half.
_______
UCLA shows it has handle on things in defeating Pepperdine
By Jon Gold Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: 11/15/2010 11:47:47 PM PST
Updated: 11/15/2010 11:52:26 PM PST
UCLA BASKETBALL: Nelson scores 20 points as Bruins use 26-2 run to put away Pepperdine.
Ben Howland glanced over at Tyler Honeycutt and smiled coyly, Honeycutt broke into a wide grin, and Reeves Nelson let out a hearty laugh.
This run and gun is sure fun.
UCLA used a 26-2 run between the first and second halves and went on to a 79-69 win over Pepperdine on Monday night at Pauley Pavilion in the second game of the NIT Season Tip-Off West Regional.
Now the Bruins face the University of the Pacific tonight - the Tigers defeated Nevada 64-53 in the opening game - with the winner advancing to Madison Square Garden in New York early next week for the semifinals.
Midway through the first half, visions of Broadway started slipping away, a mini-spurt by the Waves putting UCLA down eight with 2 minutes, 40 seconds remaining.
To that point, the Bruins were sloppier than a pie-eating contest, turnovers galore, Honeycutt with four alone.
Then UCLA put on the brakes and slowed things down.
The Bruins clamped down on the Waves, particularly super-scorer Keion Bell, who had a game-high 24 points, and turned up the heat on the other end, closing the half on a 10-0 run after a Brendan Lane 3-pointer with 23 seconds left.
"We just knew we were getting too lazy on defense," said Honeycutt, who had 16 points, four assists, four rebounds and four steals. "We knew we needed stops to get back in the game. Once we got them, we got easy transition points, and they weren't able to get back into the zone."
UCLA, though, almost never left it.
After Pepperdine's Jonathan Dupre tied the score at 36 less than a minute into the second half, the Bruins went on a 16-0 spurt, thriving in transition.
With shooting guard Malcolm Lee sidelined with a sprained ankle suffered in the first half, Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson took it to the Waves.
Nelson had 13 points in the second half - finishing with 20- while working both in the up-tempo game and in the post, where he teamed with freshman center Joshua Smith to exploit the Pepperdine posts.
Nelson, the sophomore power forward, has been a key factor in UCLA's 2-0 start, leading the team at 18.5 points per game, hitting 14 of 16 shots in two games.
"That's a great percentage," Howland said. "He did a much better job in the second half of sealing. First half he looked a little lost out there at one point. When he seals in there and demands the ball, we need to get it to him."
With Nelson hurting the Waves in transition and fellow sophomore power forward Lane chipping in on the outside - Lane's two 3-pointers and seven points were crucial - Smith was able to control the post.
Smith had 13 points and five offensive rebounds and blossomed midway through the second half, shooing the Waves away like flies.
Smith's interior game then translated to the outside, where the Bruins turned on the jets once more.
"The first half, we weren't really pushing as much as we want to because we weren't getting stops," Honeycutt said. "They were getting loose balls. After all that, and when we started to make our run, (junior point guard Lazeric Jones) made a really good job of getting the outlet and going with it.
"Once we focused on that, it helped us break the game open."
"We're UCLA."
Howland sure makes it seems as if he knows where UCLA remains in the national college basketball landscape.
When asked if he was surprised that the Bruins were chosen to host a preseason-NIT regional after the team's poor showing last season, Howland was succinct and to the point.
"No. We're UCLA," Howland said during a conference call on Sunday with reporters. "These things are scheduled in advance. It's not like this was just done in the last six months. This was done years ago."
Family affair
UCLA had plenty of trouble with Pepperdine forward Mychel Thompson, an All-West Coast Conference honorable mention a year ago. Thompson, who finished second on the Waves at 11.8 points per game, had a team-high 11 against the Bruins in the first half on Monday.
UCLA will be just as afraid of Thompson's brother, Klay.
Klay Thompson was an All-Pac-10 first-team selection for Washington State last season, and the junior is the leading returning scorer in the conference at 19.6 points per game as a sophomore last year.
"(Mychel) Thompson is a guy who can really get hot and cause problems for you, a lot like his younger brother," Howland said. "He's a very good scorer, and he's a senior. I'm very concerned."
_______
Injuries slow down UCLA in 79-69 win over Pepperdine
Malcolm Lee exits game early with an ankle injury as the Bruins take advantage of a 26-2 run to rally past the Waves in the NIT Season Tip-Off.
By Ben Bolch
The Los Angeles Times
11:33 PM PST, November 15, 2010
The cushy part of the season lasted all of one game.
UCLA found itself with bigger concerns than when to put in its walk-ons Monday night at Pauley Pavilion against Pepperdine, trailing late in the first half against a team that had dropped its opener to Portland State.
Shooting guard Malcolm Lee was lost to a left ankle injury not even six minutes into the game, and the Bruins struggled to replicate the crisp offensive display they had put on three days earlier against Cal State Northridge.
That's when UCLA found that the best way to handle the Waves was with its own epic swell, using a 26-2 surge during the middle portion of a 79-69 victory in the first round of the NIT Season Tip-Off.
The run spanned the last 2 minutes 21 seconds of the first half and the first 5:09 of the second half, the Bruins taking control of a game that had threatened to get away from them by repeatedly getting the ball to big men Reeves Nelson and Joshua Smith.
"We did a much better job of attacking the zone in the second half and getting it inside," Coach Ben Howland said.
Nelson produced a crowd-pleasing block and scored five of his 20 points during the Bruins' 16-2 run to open the second half. Forward Tyler Honeycutt contributed a couple of baskets during the push and finished with 16 points.
Things could get even dicier for the Bruins (2-0) on Tuesday when they play host to Pacific (2-0) in the second round. At stake is a trip to Madison Square Garden for a semifinal in the 16-team tournament.
Nelson was a one-man force, making eight of 10 shots, grabbing 11 rebounds and going in for putback after putback. But the crowd seemed most impressed with his block of Jonathan Dupre's shot early in the second half, rewarding him with a drawn-out chant of "Ree-eeves!"
"It just took us a little bit to figure it out," Nelson said of the Waves' defense.
The wide-bodied Smith also proved to be too much for Pepperdine (0-2) to handle, repeatedly bulling his way in for easy lay-ins midway through the second half on the way to 13 points.
There was audible unease from the sparse crowd late in the first half when the Bruins trailed by four points and Jerime Anderson missed two free throws.
It was quite a departure from the Bruins' opener, when they rattled off the game's first 15 points and quickly dismantled Northridge. Howland suggested the 8 p.m. start time threw his team out of its rhythm.
There wasn't much of a flow to the offense, and passes seemingly had as much a chance of winding up in the hands of a Wave as a Bruin. The low point for UCLA came when Keion Bell (24 points) saved a ball headed out of bounds, redirecting it through Honeycutt's legs to Dupre for a jumper that gave the Waves a 34-26 lead.
The rest of the first half was all UCLA. The Bruins commenced a 10-0 run that ended with Lane's three-pointer that gave the Bruins a 36-34 lead. They would never trail again.
UCLA played most of the game without Lee after he limped off the court with 14:15 left in the first half. Though X-rays of Lee's ankle were negative, Howland said the junior would be unavailable Tuesday, thrusting freshman Tyler Lamb into the starting lineup.
Lamb made only one of 10 shots and finished with four points against the Waves.
_________
Young Bruins rally for 79-69 victory
By Peter Yoon
ESPNLA, UCLA Report blog
November, 15, 2010 Nov 1511:26PM PT
LOS ANGELES -- UCLA showed its youth Monday night in a first-round game of the NIT Season Tipoff, but it also showed the resiliency that good team chemistry can bring in coming from behind to defeat Pepperdine, 79-69, at Pauley Pavilion.
The Bruins (2-0) struggled early, unable to get the ball inside against Pepperdine’s zone and got flustered as they fell behind, 34-26, with 2 minutes 40 seconds left in the first half.
But a 10-0 run to end the first half gave UCLA a 36-34 halftime lead and the momentum the Bruins needed to start the second half on a 16-2 run to take control of the game with a 52-36 lead.
That spurt is exactly the type of progress that brings a smile to the face of coach Ben Howland, who has a team with no seniors, is starting a freshman at center and has sophomores Reeves Nelson and Tyler Honeycutt as its top two players.
"You can tell from watching our team tonight just how young we are, how inexperienced we are," Howland said. "There’s no substitute for experience. As these kids continue to grow and get better, I think it’ll get more and more fun."
Nelson, who had a second consecutive double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds, was particularly effective in the second half with 13 points and 10 rebounds after the break.
He said the Bruins were thrown off a bit by playing the second game of a doubleheader and also because it was the first televised game for UCLA this season.
“I think a lot of it was when we came out our routine was kind of messed up,” he said. “And then playing on TV for the first time and not being prepared for all that kind of stuff and that combined with not playing that well to begin with.”
But the lesson to be taken here is that the Bruins overcame the slow start. They faced adversity and conquered it, something that was an issue last season.
“It’s a very young team and we’re going to have periods like we had in the first half,” Howland said. “I was just happy with how we rebounded from that and had a good beginning to the second half.”
__________
Malcolm Lee out with a sprained ankle
November, 15, 2010 Nov 1511:45PM PT
By Peter Yoon
ESPNLA, UCLA Report blog
UCLA guard Malcolm Lee has a sprained ankle and will miss Tuesday's game against Pacific, coach Ben Howland said after the Bruins defeated Pepperdine, 79-69, in the first round of the NIT Season Tipoff at Pauley Pavilion.
Lee, the Bruins' leading returning scorer from last season, injured his left ankle in the first half against Pepperdine. He had X-rays taken, but they were negative, Howland said. Other than that, Howland had little information.
"I'm not sure of the severity of it," Howland said. "But he won't play tomorrow for sure. He couldn't walk on it."
Lee's injury leaves UCLA with only eight available scholarship players. Freshman guard Matt Carlino is also out becaue of a concussion, though Howland said there is a chance Carlino could play against Pacific.
"I have a lot to talk about with our trainer," Howland said.
No comments:
Post a Comment