Sunday, March 10, 2013

UCLA wins at Washington 61-54, Oregon loses at Utah, Bruins Pac-12 regular season champs!!!

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Rapid Reaction: UCLA 61, Washington 54

March, 9, 2013
MAR 9
1:43
PM PT
By Peter Yoon | ESPNLosAngeles.com
The UCLA Bruins won their first Pac-12 title since 2008 by ending an eight-year losing streak in Seattle with a 61-54 victory over the Washington Huskies on Saturday at Alaska Airlines Arena. A quick breakdown:

How it happened: UCLA (23-8, 13-5) trailed 52-48 with 5:59 to play, but ended the game with a 13-2 run and held Washington (17-14, 9-9) to only one field goal the rest of the way.

Shabazz Muhammad tied the score at 52 with a 15-foot jumper with 4:17 to play, then gave the Bruins the lead for good by making a free throw with 2:51 left. Larry Drew IIsealed the victory by making a driving layup for a 59-54 lead with 32.6 seconds left, then stole the ball on Washington’s next possession.

Player of the game: Muhammad had 21 points and six rebounds. He carried the team down the stretch by scoring nine of UCLA's last 18 points. He scored 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting in the second half after making just three of his eight shots in the first half.

Stat of the game: Drew set the UCLA single-season record for assists, passing Pooh Richardson, who had 236 in 1989. Drew had six assists in the game and has 239 for the season. The record breaker came on a David Wear dunk with 13:05 left in the game.

What it means: UCLA is the outright Pac-12 conference champion, thanks to the victory and a loss by Oregon at Utah. The Bruins will have the No. 1 seeding in the Pac-12 tournament.

What’s next: UCLA will head to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament. The Bruins have an opening-round bye and will play Thursday at noon in the second round against the winner of the game between the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds.


No. 23 UCLA knocks off Washington 61-54

By TIM BOOTH (AP Sports Writer) | The Associated Press – 15 hours ago
SEATTLE (AP) -- Once they got word, UCLA stopped with the hugs and handshakes on the court and raced into the locker room, huddling around cellphones and computers to get whatever updates they could on what was happening in Salt Lake City.
When Utah's upset of Oregon became final, the Bruins' locker room erupted with cheers; the Pac-12 Conference regular-season title was theirs alone.
''To go through all the adversity we've gone through this season, to be able to win it here is really special,'' UCLA coach Ben Howland said. ''To beat a really good team on their home floor is difficult to do, and that was done today.''
Shabazz Muhammad scored 21 points, Larry Drew II came up with another huge shot against Washington, and No. 23 UCLA clinched the Pac-12 Conference regular-season title with a 61-54 win over the Huskies on Saturday.
The day began with four teams still alive for a piece of the Pac-12 title, thanks mostly to the Bruins opening the door by losing at Washington State on Wednesday night, their first loss in Pullman in 20 years. They slammed shut the hopes for anyone other than Oregon by suffocating the Huskies for the final 5 minutes, holding Washington to just two points.
That closing surge by the Bruins gave them their first win in Seattle since 2004 and at least a share of the regular-season title. When they got help from Utah, the title belonged to the Bruins for the third time in Howland's tenure. They will be the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament next week in Las Vegas.
''That was our main goal at the beginning of the season,'' UCLA's Travis Wear said. ''We fought through some adversity during the season and to end in this environment and come into Washington and get the win it feels awesome.''
Muhammad scored 14 in the second half and helped UCLA (23-8, 13-5 Pac-12) rally from a four-point deficit with 5 minutes remaining. He took over when the Bruins needed their freshman to be a star. Howland believes Muhammad's performance in the final regular-season game of the season - and likely his career - should earn him the conference player of the year award.
''I thought Shabazz was great today. Shabazz is the player of the year in the conference,'' Howland said. ''This win hopefully hammers that home. He was phenomenal.''
Jordan Adams added 17 points and Travis Wear had 10 for the Bruins, who avoided being swept in the state of Washington for the first time since 1993. Drew hit the winning shot at the buzzer against Washington in early February in Los Angeles and came up with another huge basket in the final minute again.
Drew finished with seven points and became UCLA's single-season assists leader, passing Pooh Richardson. UCLA also took advantage of Washington's 19 turnovers, turning them into 29 points.
Scott Suggs had 14 points, but Washington (17-14, 9-9 leading scorer C.J. Wilcox was just 3 of 13 shooting for eight points.
Down by one at the half, UCLA started the second half on a roll, hitting five of its first six shots. Adams and Muhammad combined for the first 10 points of the half as the Bruins took their largest lead at 40-33 with 16:20 left. Washington eventually worked it was back and pulled even at 45 with 8:56 left after a jumper from Abdul Gaddy and steal and layup from Andrew Andrews. Norman Powell had an open baseline drive, but 7-footer Aziz N'Diaye quickly rotated and smothered the shot, leading to Suggs' jumper in the lane that gave Washington a 47-45 lead with 7:56 left.
Muhammad briefly pulled UCLA even before N'Diaye's three-point play and Gaddy scoring on an inbound pass for a 52-47 lead. N'Diaye added another huge block, this time on Adams and did a few pushups while lying on the ground, but the Huskies missed three good opportunities to extend the lead - including Wilcox's open 3 rimming out - before Kyle Anderson and Muhammad both scored to draw even at 52-all.
Washington would remain stuck on 52 for the next four minutes while UCLA took the lead on free throws from Adams and Muhammad. Wilcox had another 3 rim out before Washington's scoring skid ended on Shawn Kemp Jr.'s lob dunk with 1:03 left - the Huskies only points over the final 5:59 - to cut the deficit to 57-54.
UCLA drained the shot clock and Drew beat Suggs off the dribble for a driving layup with 32.6 left that proved to be the clinching basket.
''We made an effort to play defense from the start,'' Muhammad said. ''I think in the second half we really tightened it up and they had trouble scoring.''
Kemp finished with 10 points for Washington, but eight of those came early. He was the only other Washington player in double figures.
''I don't have a lot to say. It was pretty obvious to our team and me where the difference in that game was. UCLA did a great job of forcing us into 19 turnovers, which they converted into 29 points,'' Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. ''They scored 61, so that's right at half of their points. It's similar to what happened at their place.''
By RYAN KARTJE / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: March 9, 2013 Updated: 10:58 p.m.
SEATTLE – Just moments after he had again made the difference-making basket against Washington, this time burning past his defender and rolling the ball off the backboard and into the hoop, UCLA point guard Larry Drew II emerged from the darkness of the tunnel at Alaska Airlines Arena, overcome with emotion.
Drew's final lay-in didn't have the drama of his buzzer-beating stepback winner against the Huskies back in Westwood, but this one certainly meant much more. This shot ensured the Bruins would be Pac-12 regular-season champions in Drew's only season playing with the team – capping off a 64-59 victory. And he, UCLA's once-maligned, and now-irreplaceable point guard, had made it happen.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he came closer to the locker room. Soon, they were streaming down his face. He pulled his jersey up over his nose and wiped them away. Surrounded by his teammates, Drew II sat down next to his locker and tried to let it sink in. He had been through so much – an ugly transfer from North Carolina, the ongoing doubts that he could lead a team. And his team had been through similar adversity, doubted constantly, continually all season by those who said it couldn't live up to expectations.
But as the visiting locker room roared as news came that Oregon had lost to Utah, giving UCLA its first outright conference title since 2008, it had all come full circle. The point guard, written off by so many, had led his constantly dismissed team to the Pac-12 mountaintop. They had been a perfect match all along.
"After everything I've been through," Drew II said, struggling to get out the words, "it means a lot. I can't even put it into words. ... I'm numb right now. I can't feel nothing. I'm just happy."
It was a much different feeling than any of the Bruins had felt just three days before, when they left Pullman, Wash., having been thoroughly beaten by the conference's worst team. But that seemed a distant memory as the team posed in front of a Pac-12 championship banner, their grins stretching from ear to ear.
Preseason expectations had long called for this moment – Coach Ben Howland extending a hand out to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, as Scott handed him the team's championship trophy. UCLA boasted an almost entirely new talent-laden roster compared to the year before – one that included the nation's top recruiting class. But as the Bruins lost their fair share of bad games – to Cal Poly SLO, to USC, to Arizona State – confidence waned outside of the program that UCLA would ever actually be here.
"We had our struggles in the beginning of the year, some in the middle, some at the end," freshman guard Jordan Adams said. "But ultimately, we stayed through it. We adjusted. ... We knew what we could do. We knew we were capable of doing this."
Even throughout Saturday's game, there were moments of doubt. For more than five minutes in the second half, the Bruins were held without a field goal and lost their lead, unable to produce any sort of offensive rhythm.
But with the bright lights on, freshman Shabazz Muhammad – whose preseason hype had also brought plenty of reservations – took over, scoring seven of UCLA's next nine points and giving the Bruins the lead back. He'd finish with 21 points – 14 in the second half – and six rebounds. It was one of his best offensive performances of the season. After the game, he held the team's Pac-12 trophy close to his face, trying to preserve the moment.
"Shabazz is the player of the year in the conference," Howland said. "This win, I think probably, hopefully hammers that home."
Plenty was proven on Saturday afternoon, as UCLA held onto a victory in Seattle for the first time in nine years. The Bruins hadn't just navigated the Pac-12, they'd emerged as its top team and done so by starting three freshmen and a once-disregarded point guard, while dealing with questions about the coach's future.
Like the point guard who led them there – and ultimately sealed their fate – the Bruins had overcome the odds, proving all of their doubters wrong on their way to an outright Pac-12 title.
Contact the writer: rkartje@ocregister.com


"Underachieving" Bruins are Pac-12 champions

UCLA takes regular-season title with a 61-54 victory over Washington, the Bruins' first win in Seattle since 2004. Shabazz Muhammad scores 21 points.


By Chris Foster
LA Times
5:16 PM PST, March 9, 2013


SEATTLE — The locker room door flung open and UCLA Coach Ben Howland barked out, "Let's go, photo op."

The Bruins, dissected like frogs in biology class all season, eagerly rolled out into the hallway.

UCLA had wrapped up a share of the Pac-12 championship with a 61-54 victory over Washington at Alaska Airlines Arena Saturday. The Bruins spent 10 minutes after the game monitoring Utah's victory over Oregon game, which left the title only in Westwood.

Time to say "cheese."

Pac-12 officials borrowed the 2011-12 conference championship trophy from Washington's trophy case for a prop. A championship banner was unfurled. And Guard Larry Drew II, fighting through tears, was still coming to grips with the moment.

"I'm numb right now," said Drew, whose layup with 33 seconds to play put the game out of reach. "Guys were following the Utah game. I was sitting there dazed. I heard everyone else start yelling and somebody poured a Sprite all over me."

There was one thing Drew could grasp.

"A lot of people wrote us off early in the season," Drew said. "We had a group of guys who believed in one goal."

This was an unlikely place to achieve it.

UCLA (23-8 overall, 13-5 in Pac-12) had not won at Washington since 2004. The Bruins were fresh from an embarrassing loss to last-place Washington State on Wednesday.

"To win it here, with all the adversity we've been through, is special," Howland said.

The chatter had been going on all season. The Bruins, with the nation's No. 2 recruiting class, were not living up to expectations. A December loss to Cal Poly was used as proof.

"People said some crazy things, like we were supposed to go undefeated," said freshman guard Jordan Adams, who had 17 points. "Coach Howland deals with that. Every loss, he takes all the blame and blames nothing on us."

This was the Bruins' fourth Pac-12 championship under Howland. The only UCLA coach with more was John Wooden.

Howland moved on from the adversity talk, saying, "We're on to the next thing."

That would be next week's Pac-12 tournament. UCLA will be the top-seeded team.

"I told the guys, 'You get up for big games, they are big from now on,' " Drew said.

The Bruins were ripe for collapse in a big game Saturday. The Huskies (17-14, 9-9) led, 52-48, with six minutes left. Washington didn't score again for nearly five minutes.

"Night in and night out, if you defend, even when you go through five-minute lulls where you don't score, you give yourself a chance to win," Howland said.

Washington's 19 turnovers resulted in 29 UCLA points, 18 in the second half.

"At halftime we heard Utah was up," Adams said. "We knew we had to take care of our business."

Business was good for freshman Shabazz Muhammad. He finished with 21 points, including five straight points after getting an earful from Washington center Aziz N'Diaye.

"He said, 'I can ball too,' " Muhammad said. "I said, 'Obviously you can, or you wouldn't be on the floor.' "

Huskies fans had stopped chanting "overrated" after Muhammad scored to give UCLA a 55-52 lead.

"Shabazz is the player of the year in this conference," Howland said. "This win, hopefully, hammers that home."

The game was left to the hands of Drew, who left North Carolina after three seasons to get a one-year shot at UCLA and wound up breaking Pooh Richardson's single-season school record for assists.

After the Huskies closed to within three points in the final minute, Drew burst to the basket to bank in a shot that gave the Bruins a 59-54 lead and broke Washington's will.

Said Drew: "People can write us off. We're sticking together."

chris.foster@latimes.com

Twitter: @cfosterlatimes
 
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