Lazeric Jones and Jerime Anderson walk off the court after UCLA was ousted in the PAC-10 tournament by Oregon, 76-59. Photo THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERBruins stunned by Oregon in first round
Published: March 10, 2011
Updated: March 11, 2011 7:46 p.m.
By SCOTT M. REID
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LOS ANGELES – UCLA, its exit from the Pac-10 Tournament coming at least one night earlier than expected, trudged out of Staples Center through a side door late Thursday into the chill of a long night and the uncertainty of an even longer weekend.
The Bruins will have plenty of time to consider how much an embarrassing 76-59 loss to Oregon damaged their NCAA Tournament seeding.
"If it was (based on) just this game, obviously, we wouldn't even be invited," UCLA coach Ben Howland said.
Oregon, the tournament's No.7 seed and a two-time loser to the Bruins during the regular season, repeatedly exposed serious flaws with UCLA (22-10) on both ends of the court on a night that also raised serious questions about a young Bruins team's focus with the NCAA Tournament just a week away.
The low point, or at least most embarrassing moment, on a night full of them for the Bruins came with 5:22 left in the first half when UCLA picked up a technical foul for having six players on the court.
"That right there was indicative of the night," Howland said. "That that could actually happen is unbelievable."
UCLA never really seemed to have its head in a game that was even more one-sided than the final score suggests.
"Our team wasn't necessarily ready for the energy and intensity Oregon was going to come out with and obviously it showed throughout the whole game," Bruins guard Jerime Anderson said.
Oregon (16-16), denying the ball inside, held UCLA to six field goals and 25 percent shooting in the first half. The Ducks then sliced and diced the Bruins' overplaying man-to-man defense, shooting 58.3 percent in a second half in which the Ducks led by as much as 22 points.
"The worst we've played all year," said Bruins forward Tyler Honeycutt.
Take away forward Honeycutt's 19 points and UCLA's other four regulars were a combined 9-for-29 shooting from the field. Reeves Nelson, UCLA's other starting forward, failed to score in the first half.
"No one on our team played well tonight," Howland said.
But was what was most alarming was the absence of a sense of urgency in the way the Bruins played.
"Just started from warm-up," Honeycutt said. "Guys weren't taking like game shots, weren't really being focused. Really they just outplayed us. They were more prepared than we were. They had the mentality that they didn't have anything to lose. We came in here with a too cool of an attitude."
Bottom line, Honeycutt said: "We took this for granted."
Not even the too many players on the court technical seemed to serve as a wake-up call for the Bruins.
"I'm not a math major, but when I saw five out there and one walking in front of our bench, I totaled that up to six," Oregon coach Dana Altman said. "It's one of those things that that happens sometimes, not communicating."
Asked when was the last time he saw six men on the court call, Altman paused and chuckled.
"Back when I was coaching junior college ball," he said. "And that would have been in the '80s. It hasn't happened for a while."
Ducks forward E.J. Singler sank both technical free throws for two of his game-high 24 points and a 30-19 Oregon lead. The Ducks gained an additional surge of momentum when Duck guard Garrett Sim nailed a 3-point jumper at the halftime buzzer to send the Ducks into the intermission up 38-24.
"And we let him take that shot," Howland said. "We just stood there."
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UCLA basketball: Howland — ‘It starts with me’
March 11th, 2011, 7:59 am
by SCOTT M. REID, UCLA BLOG, OCREGISTER.COM
For more than a half hour UCLA coach Ben Howland had kept it together after the Bruins’ embarrassing 76-59 loss to Oregon in the Pac-10 Tournament quarterfinals Thursday.
He acknowledged his disappointment and the Bruins wide range of mistakes cooly, patiently answering question after question.
But as he leaned up against a wall in the team’s Staples Center locker-room, his team preparing to walk across the street to their hotel, Howland’s anger was visible simmering just below the surface.
“I’m pi…” Howland started to say before simply nodding with a matter of fact firmness of a man who knows he what he needs to do.
In a closed door meeting immediately after the loss, Howland told his team to take a look in the mirror.
“You’ve got to to back and look at yourself first, not point at anybody else but one’s self,” Howland said. “To me that is important when you come off a really disappointing effort and loss the way we had tonight.”
And Thursday night Howland was taking a hard look at himself.
“Bottom line now is that it starts with me,” Howland said. “Our team was not ready to play today. That was really obvious.”
UCLA will watch the Oregon game video on Friday and then return to practice on Saturday with the NCAA tournament field announced Sunday afternoon.
“It only comes through hard work,” Howland said. “We need to have a lot of learning going on (Friday) when we watch the film, and we need to have really good practices, Saturday’s practice to get ready when we do get an opportunity to go wherever it is when we find out on Sunday.”
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