UCLA's Joshua Smith, right, celebrates after dunking the ball, with teammates Tyler Honeycutt, left, and Reeves Nelson, center, against Southern California during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)Bruins end four-game losing streak against USC
By RYAN MENEZES
The Daily Bruin in Men's Basketball, Sports
Published February 3, 2011 Updated: 2:25 PM
MEN’S BASKETBALL
UCLA 64
USC 50
Lazeric Jones drained his first shot attempt of the game over Maurice Jones and shook his head, as if to say, “we’ve got this one.”
Late in the second half, the Joneses were at it again. Maurice, the USC starting guard, streaked down the court ready to turn a one-on-nothing fastbreak into a lay-up, but his UCLA counterpart, Zeek, met him at the rim to sway his shot away.
The Bruins’ junior point guard smiled as the 10,419 at Pauley Pavilion roared its approval. The blue and gold faithful who packed the house weren’t ready to see UCLA lose another one to the cardinal and gold, and Zeek and the Bruins didn’t disappoint in a 64-50 win over the Trojans Wednesday night.
The win improved the Bruins’ record to 15-7, 7-3 in the Pac-10, and brought them to within half a game of first in the conference.
It was the first win in five tries against the crosstown rival Trojans (12-11, 4-6), and the meaning of the win wasn’t lost on the young Bruins, who celebrated on the floor after ending a streak that spanned three seasons.
“Our crowd was fantastic tonight,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “I was really, really excited by the amount of electricity in the building and how great our students were.”
The Bruins started hot – making their first five field goals – and they closed the half shooting 58 percent.
“We knew they would play with a sense of urgency after having beaten them four in a row,” USC coach Kevin O’Neill said.
But a number of late defensive lapses resulted in a 9-2 Trojan run and cut the Bruins’ lead to just one at the half.
“All the guys in the locker room were just like, ‘we’ve got to keep our heads in the game,’” said junior guard Malcolm Lee, who scored 13 points.
Trojan forward Alex Stepheson’s dunk after the break put USC up 37-36 – its first lead since 6-5 early – with the two teams trading baskets after the half.
The dynamic frontcourt duo of Stepheson and Nikola Vucevic once again gave the Bruins’ frontline trouble. They combined to score the Trojans’ first eight points of the second half – all in the paint.
But UCLA pulled away shortly thereafter on the heels of its defense, which for a second had looked like it was fading away, just as it had in USC’s win at the Galen Center on Jan. 9.
A USC layup gave UCLA just a one-point edge at 46-45, but the Trojans would score only five points in the remaining 11:43.
The Bruins had been double-teaming Vucevic the entire game, but Howland told sophomore forward Reeves Nelson and freshman center Joshua Smith to keep it to just man-on-man defense during USC’s drought late in the second. Down the stretch, they held Vucevic scoreless and made sure the battle of the bigs didn’t tip the Trojans’ way again.
“With Vucevic you just have to be physical with him,” said Smith, who had a team-leading 15 points and six rebounds, and managed to stay out of foul trouble in a matchup that had given him trouble the first time around.
The fuel of the defense was the passionate Pauley crowd – the largest of the year – which bemoaned every questionable call and cheered every hustle play as the Bruins pulled away.
By the time sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt put in a two-handed slam over a shove from USC forward Marcus Simmons to extend the UCLA lead to 12, the crowd was as loud as it had been all night – possibly all season – and the nail was in the coffin.
UCLA celebrated much like USC had at the Galen Center – loudly, enthusiastically, and before the final whistle had even blown.
“We were just excited,” Smith said. “Anytime you play your rivals at home and you win, you’re just like ‘We did it.’”
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Bruins guard Malcolm Lee protects the ball, but not his head, from the swipe of Trojans guard Jio Fontan in the first half Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2011)UCLA snaps four-game losing streak to USC in college basketball
By Vincent Bonsignore Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: 02/02/2011 10:45:20 PM PST
Updated: 02/02/2011 11:33:13 PM PST
The first week of February is a peculiar one for college basketball teams. The season is at the midway point, conference races are building in intrigue and the allure of March Madness is beginning to mount.
But even with all that, football is front and center, the decisions on where the best 17- and 18-year old high school prospects will play in college pushing aside even the most enticing basketball story.
From that platform - national signing day, no less - UCLA hosted cross-town rival USC in a basketball game Wednesday at Pauley Pavilion.
While the Bruins took a severe beating from the Trojans on the football recruiting trail, they can at least to take some solace with a 64-50 victory, snapping a four-game losing streak against USC.
UCLA moved to 15-7 on the season and 7-3 in the Pacific-10 Conference, a half-game behind Washington and Arizona for first place.
Joshua Smith had 15 points, Malcolm Lee added 13 points and Lazeric Jones had nine for UCLA, which also got eight points from Reeves Nelson.
Jones suffered an injured left hand falling hard to the ground after a dunk attempt. An initial exam showed no break, but he will be re-evaluated today.
Nikola Vucevic led USC with 18 points and Alex Stepheson added 14. The Trojans fell to 12-11 and 4-6 in the Pac-10.
The Bruins pulled away late in the second half, building a 57-47 lead with 4:15 remaining on two free throws by Lee, then holding off the Trojans down the
stretch.
Tyler Honeycutt put it away when he dunked over two Trojans, got fouled and made the free throw to make it 62-50.
"That was a great win for us," UCLA coach Ben Howland said. "Our defense tonight hurt us at times but at the end of the day we held them to 39 percent shooting."
The Bruins had much more to be concerned with than upholding school honor - and maybe band-aiding some of the football program's problems.
They find themselves in the thick of the Pac-10 race and very much in the process of building a case for themselves for the NCAA Tournament.
On top of that, there was that little thing about them losing four straight times to USC, including a 63-52 setback three weeks ago and last year's 67-46 demolishing at Pauley Pavilion, USC's biggest win over UCLA in sixdecades.
"We knew they were going to play with a sense of urgency having beaten them four times in a row," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said. "We didn't get enough stops in the first half to put us in a position to win, and we had a little stretch there at the end where we just couldn't get a basket to go down, missed a bunch of free throws. We just don't have enough as it stands right now."
For a team accustomed to owning Los Angeles on an annual basis, the four consecutive losses were a bitter reminder the Bruins have been losing their grip locally. And a trend they were intent on reversing.
"We knew they had a little run and winning streak on us," Lee said. "And we knew this was going to be a big game, not just for the rivalry but because we're still trying to get in the run for the Pac-10 title. So we knew this was a big game and we came out to work hard."
Initially that seemed exactly what UCLA would do, opening up a nine-point lead midway through the first half behind Lee's 11 points and the nine points from freshman Smith, who had his way inside with two dunks and 3 of 5 shooting.
But the Trojans battled back to within 36-35 at the end of the half, getting 12 points from Vucevic and 10 from Stepheson, both of whom attacked UCLA inside the paint.
Vucevic continued to be a problem in the second half, put Nelson took over on him defensively and held him scoreless over the final six minutes.
"I was so pleased with Reeves' defense because he was one-on-one and he wanted that challenge," Howland said. "He accepted us and did a great job for us."
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UCLA forward Reeves Nelson elevates for a dunk over USC guard Marcus Simmons in the first half Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2010)Bruins end skid against Trojans
Published: Feb. 2, 2011
Updated: 11:11 p.m.
By SCOTT M. REID
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LOS ANGELES – Reeves Nelson couldn't contain himself.
Maybe it was sting of four consecutive losses to USC.
Or maybe it was the Trojans' curtain call through the final minute of most recent USC victory.
For whatever reason, in the closing moments of UCLA's 64-50 victory against its crosstown rival, decorum was no match for a swell of joy and relief.
And so Bruins forward Nelson and freshman center Smith went "Pete Carroll" through the final seconds of Wednesday night's triumph amid a deafening profane chant at Pauley Pavilion, high-fiving and fist-pumping, putting an exclamation mark on an emphatic victory.
"Players were happy," UCLA coach Ben Howland said.
Was it payback?
"I don't think so," Howland said. "We're not known for revenge or payback."
UCLA outscored USC, 20-9, down the stretch to improve to 15-7 overall, 7-3 in the Pac-10 with former Bruins coach Steve Lavin and giant killer St. John's headed to Pauley for a Saturday morning game.
Smith finished with a team-high 15 points and six rebounds off the bench on a night that had to particularly sweet for the freshman.
Smith fouled out of a 63-52 Trojans victory Jan. 9 with just eight points and three rebounds, none of them on the offensive glass. Rattled on the court, Smith had a meltdown off it, making an obscene gesture toward a group of Trojans fans making inappropriate comments about his parents. Smith then ripped the game's referees.
Smith comments brought a public reprimand by Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott and the promise of suspension if he made additional comments.
Wednesday night Smith set the tone with left-handed slam dunk for his first field goal with 14:43 left in the first half. A minute later he slammed home a right-handed rim rattler.
"Josh was a force tonight," Howland said.
Bruins guard Malcolm Lee scored 11 of his 13 points in a first half in which UCLA led by as much as nine before taking a 36-35 lead into halftime. Lee also helped UCLA hold Trojans guard Maurice Jones to two points.
Nelson added 11 rebounds, eight points. UCLA forward Tyler Honeycutt contributed eight points, nine boards, five assists, two blocked shots and a steal.
"We just came out in the second half and did a good job of executing our game plan," Honeycutt said.
Nikola Vucevic scored a game-high 18 points and seven rebounds to lead a Trojan team (12-11, 4-6) that has now lost five of its last seven games. Alex Stepheson added 14 points and eight rebounds.
But the pair was no match for Smith and the Bruins inside. UCLA outrebounded the Trojans, 39-25 — 24 to 11 in the second half.
When Nelson sank a 16-foot jumper from the right baseline UCLA was off on its game-ending run. Jerime Anderson's 23-foot 3-point jumper from the right side of the arc made it 53-45.
"Jerime really made some timely baskets for us tonight," Howland said.
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Bruins center Joshua Smith gets loose for a dunk against USC in the first half Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2010)UCLA gets excited about beating USC
The Bruins end a four-game losing streak in the series with Trojans, 64-50.
By Ben Bolch
The Los Angeles Times
11:10 PM PST, February 2, 2011
It's back on.
A cross-town rivalry that had veered away from the city's basketball blueblood was nudged back in the other direction Wednesday night, UCLA closing the book on what USC had hoped to make a historic chapter in the series.
Thanks to an unusually inspired effort by the Bruins, you still have to go all the way back to 1943 to find a Trojans team that won at least five consecutive games against UCLA.
Freshman center Joshua Smith bounced back in a big way from the team's first meeting and the Bruins' guards badly outplayed their counterparts, helping UCLA pull away for a 64-50 victory that ended the Trojans' four-game winning streak in the series.
Smith punctuated his 15-point, six-rebound effort by wildly flapping his arms and then high-fiving teammates Reeves Nelson and Tyler Honeycutt in the final 30 seconds.
Smith was on the opposite end of a similar celebration last month at the Galen Center and voiced his displeasure with the scene afterward.
"We were excited," Smith said of the scene Wednesday. "Any time you play your rivals at home and you win, we were just [like], 'Hey, we did it.'"
USC big men Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stepheson combined for 32 points and 15 rebounds and it still wasn't enough for the Trojans, who got scant production from guards Jio Fontan and Maurice Jones. Fontan missed all five of his shots, going scoreless for the second time in three games, and Jones had only two points on one-for-four shooting.
By comparison, Malcolm Lee had 13 points, 11 in the first half, and Lazeric Jones nine for the Bruins (15-7 overall, 7-3 Pacific 10 Conference), who outrebounded the Trojans (12-11, 4-6), 39-25. Much of that discrepancy came from the second half, when UCLA had 24 rebounds to USC's 11.
Jones provided a late spark when he trailed USC's Donte Smith on a breakaway, only to catch him and block his shot.
"It was a huge play because he didn't quit, he didn't give up," UCLA Coach Ben Howland said.
Honeycutt missed a three-pointer on UCLA's ensuing possession, but Lee grabbed the rebound and was fouled. Lee made both free throws to give the Bruins a 57-47 lead with 4:15 remaining and energize the season-high crowd of 10,419.
Vucevic (18 points) missed several opportunities from close range in the final minutes after UCLA had stopped double-teaming the USC big man and used Nelson to guard him one on one. The frustration seemed to peak for the Trojans during one late possession in which Smith blocked a shot by Stepheson and then Honeycutt intercepted a pass by Vucevic.
"We had a little stretch there at the end when we couldn't get a basket to go down, missed a bunch of free throws," USC Coach Kevin O'Neill said. "We just don't have enough as it stands right now."
USC trailed by only one midway through the second half after Maurice Jones blew past Tyler Lamb for a layup.
But then the Bruins got rolling, Jerime Anderson making a baseline jumper and Lamb taking an over-the-shoulder pass from Honeycutt for an easy layup. When Anderson buried a fadeaway three-pointer, UCLA had a 53-45 lead and the Trojans were teetering.
It was the start of a potentially emotional but rewarding week for UCLA. On Saturday, the Bruins will play host to St. John's and former UCLA coach Steve Lavin.
UCLA hopes it has Jones after the junior guard fell on his left hand while trying to dunk over a pair of USC players. Howland said Jones probably would have X-rays on the hand.
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UCLA point guard Lazeric Jones begins to celebrate in the final seconds of the Bruins' 64-50 victory over USC at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday night. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2010)UCLA turns up the defense to wear down USC
The Bruins hold the Trojans to just 15 second-half points and outrebound them by 14 in the final 20 minutes of 64-50 UCLA victory.
By Baxter Holmes
The Los Angelinos Times
February 4, 2011
A UCLA fan longing for the good old days in Westwood saw a glimpse of them Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion.
The seconds were ticking off the Bruins' 64-50 win against their crosstown rival USC, and the fan, standing in the bleachers behind the Bruins' basket, knew the way UCLA did it looked awfully familiar.
"That's how the Final Four teams played defense," he said.
UCLA (15-7, 7-3 in Pacific 10 Conference play) turned its one-point halftime lead into a double-digit win with a suffocating defense.
The Bruins held USC (12-11, 4-6) to just 15 second-half points, as the Trojans missed 16 of 23 shots after halftime.
And three of those misses came on fastbreak attempts, such as when UCLA junior guard Lazeric Jones chased down USC senior guard Donte Smith and emphatically swatted his layup attempt with 4 minutes 25 seconds left in the second half, bringing the mostly Bruin blue crowd of 10,419 to its feet.
"Our defense hurt us at times, but the bottom line is that they shot 39%," UCLA Coach Ben Howland said.
As USC missed 31 of 51 shots, including eight of nine from three-point range, the other defensive area that contributed heavily to the bottom line of UCLA's win was rebounding.
Consider:
UCLA went into the locker room at halftime with a one-point lead and a one-rebound advantage.
The Bruins finished with a 14-point victory as they outrebounded the Trojans in the final 20 minutes by 14.
Coincidence? Hardly.
"They scored on those rebounds, too," said USC guard Jio Fontan, who missed all five of his shots from the field and both from the free-throw line.
"That's what killed us."
Aside from holding Fontan scoreless, to which credit is owed the player who guarded him, UCLA sophomore guard Tyler Honeycutt, the Bruins also held USC's other two starting guards, freshman Maurice Jones and senior Marcus Simmons, to seven total points on a combined three-for-seven shooting from the field.
But Howland said the key change came in the final six minutes, when UCLA stopped double-teaming USC junior guard Nikola Vucevic on defense and instead let Reeves Nelson guard him one on one.
And the UCLA sophomore forward won that competition, as Vucevic, who had scored 18 points by then, didn't score the rest of the game.
"Reeves was huge, playing one-on-one against him," Howland said. "He also had 11 rebounds for us and was a force in the paint."
Defense had been USC's calling card. The Trojans entered the game with the Pac-10's second-ranked scoring defense (63.3 points allowed per game).
But USC Coach Kevin O'Neill said his team, which has just a seven-man rotation, was worn down by the depth and talent of UCLA, a fact evident in the Bruins' 26-11 advantage in bench points.
"They have really good talent, let's face it," O'Neill said. "They have talented offensive players. They're a difficult guard for anybody, let alone us with seven guys.
"They're a good team and they're getting better."
For Bruin fans, who have seen their team win six of seven games since falling to USC on Jan. 9, that's some long-awaited good news.
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Bruin fans celebrate after UCLA’s 64-50 victory against USC. The Bruins will face former UCLA coach Steve Lavin and St. John’s on Saturday at Pauley Pavilion. Maya Sugarman The Daily BruinUCLA basketball: Howland criticizes X-rated chant
February 3rd, 2011, 3:38 pm posted by SCOTT M. REID, UCLA Blog OCREGISTER.COM
Pauley Pavilion rocked throughout UCLA’s 64-50 victory against USC Wednesday night, especially in the second half, with a profane anti-USC chant that seemed to come from all sections of the storied arena.
“(Expletive) SC!”
“(Expletive) SC!”
“(Expletive) SC!”
UCLA coach Ben Howland on Friday was quick to call the chant inappropriate, saying the university would address the issue before the teams’ game in Westwood next season.
“That was obviously something we don’t condone, ” Howland said. “I was very excited about how the crowd (was), especially the students.
“This is a class program. That’s not right. We don’t want that.”
UCLA players have said that Pauley is not as loud this season as other venues in the Pac-10, most notably Arizona’s McKale Center and Oregon’s Matt Court, the brand new Matthew Knight Arena. Howland has been visiting to UCLA fraternities and sororities trying to drum up more support amongst UCLA students.
The cross-town rivalry has long had its nasty moments. Most recently UCLA freshman center Joshua Smith made an obscene gesture to USC fans after the Trojans’ victory at the Galen Center Jan. 9 in response to inappropriate comments the fans made about his parents.
But longtime observers said they could not recall a profane chant as loud and as widespread as Wednesday’s at a game between the rival schools. The chant began before the game started and gained volume and frequency throughout the night.
Quotables: Malcolm Lee, Joshua Smith, Tyler Honeycutt
By Jon Gold on February 4, 2011 5:37 PM
The Los Angeles Daily News
Click on boxscore to enlarge (from Yahoo Sports)
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