UCLA Loses on the Road at Arizona State, 78-60

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UCLA Loses on the Road at Arizona State, 78-60

Jordan Adams scored 19 points and Shabazz Muhammad had 18.

Jordan Adams

Jan. 26, 2013




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TEMPE, Ariz. - Jordan Adams scored a team-leading 19 points andShabazz Muhammad finished with 18 as UCLA dropped a 78-60 decision at Arizona State on Saturday afternoon.

UCLA (16-5, 6-2 Pac-12) could not overcome a 39-33 halftime deficit and was limited to 34.7 percent shooting from the field, the Bruins' lowest output of the season.

Arizona State (16-4, 5-2) received a game-high 23 points and 11 rebounds from Carrick Felix, while Jordan Bachynski tallied 22 points and 15 rebounds as a dominant inside presence for the host Sun Devils.

ASU's Jahii Carson and Evan Gordon each scored 12 points. The Sun Devils outrebounded the Bruins by a 52-32 margin and blocked 10 shots.

UCLA guard Larry Drew II rounded out the Bruins' list of double-digit scorers, contributing 12 points while adding four assists.

The Bruins never led by more than four points in the first three minutes of the game, before Arizona State took a 7-6 cushion and led the rest of the contest. UCLA was able to reduced ASU's double-digit second half cushion to just nine points with 2:18 to play, but four free throws from Carson in the game's final 2:30 help Arizona State preserve a substantial advantage.

UCLA lost for just the second time in its last 13 contests.

The Bruins return to action against crosstown rival USC on Wednesday evening. Game time in Pauley Pavilion is slated for 7 p.m. The game will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.

Spread thinly, Bruins lose to Sun Devils 78-60

 January 26, 2013 6:36 pmMore stories in Men's Basketball, Sports

BY SAM STRONG

DAILY BRUIN

TEMPE, Ariz. — Before Saturday’s game, a UCLA coach warned the Bruins that the matchup with the unranked Arizona State Sun Devils should be treated as a trap game.

After a thrilling yet exhausting win over a top-10 Arizona team on Thursday, UCLA traveled to Wells Fargo Arena missing a player from its already thin roster. From tip off, things fell flat for the Bruins.

“There was no motivation going into this game,” freshman guard Shabazz Muhammad said of the 78-60 loss. “We knew it was a trap game and we had to go out and play hard because we got a great win over Arizona, and then we came out here and didn’t play as hard.”

Coach Ben Howland offered a simpler explanation.

“As good as we were Thursday, we weren’t that good today,” he said.

Redshirt junior forward Travis Wear, UCLA’s third leading scorer, was held out because of a concussion. It didn’t take long for the Sun Devils (16-4, 5-2 Pac-12) to expose the hole left by Wear’s absence.

Junior center Jordan Bachynski logged career highs in points (22) and rebounds (15). He also blocked six shots.

“I hadn’t even heard of the guy, but he was huge,” said Muhammad, who finished with 18 points. “We had no chance for him inside.”

Wear’s replacement – his twin brother, redshirt junior forward David – struggled to keep up with Bachynski and couldn’t find a spark on offense. He finished with just five points on 2-of-12 shooting.

“I thought we were a little slow on our reactions,” Wear said. “It seemed like we were a step slow all night on defense. It was tough. They’re a big team. They’re a physical team. It caught up with us a little bit.”

Freshman center Tony Parker didn’t help take much of the load off of David Wear. Parker was held scoreless on the night and only pulled down one rebound in 13 minutes of action.

With just seven scholarship players available, fatigue quickly became an issue as all of the Bruins’ starters played for more than 30 minutes.

“We’re tired,” said freshman Jordan Adams. “It’s tough playing in the desert.”

UCLA (16-5, 6-2) would prefer to score by running on fast breaks, but Arizona State wouldn’t allow it. The Sun Devils smothered any chance of a fast break, out-rebounding the Bruins by 20 and forcing them into an ineffective half-court offense.

UCLA also had its worst shooting night of the season, connecting on just 34 percent of its shot attempts.

“We just didn’t execute,” Howland said. “Our offense was really poor.”

The Bruins return to Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday to host the USC Trojans (8-13, 3-5).

Court Visions: Shooting for speed over strength

 January 26, 2013 9:41 pmMore stories in Men's Basketball, Sports

BY RYAN MENEZES

daily bruin

TEMPE, Ariz. — It doesn’t matter that the Bruins, despite having three forwards on the roster, are not a very tall team, or one that uses its height in an effective way. What’s more important is how they handle the bigs of the opposition.

We saw a team that matched up well with UCLA last week when Oregon visited Pauley Pavilion. Arizona, at least on paper, looked like it did as well, but Thursday’s game showed that the eye test has little predictive value.

It didn’t take much for Arizona State to exploit UCLA’s Achilles heel during Saturday’s 78-60 blowout, but the blueprint for beating this team that Oregon beat one week ago was on display.

When the Bruins started embracing their running game, two basic tenets of recent UCLA teams were abandoned: elite defense, particularly near the basket; and a calculated offense that could slowly pick apart whatever an opposing team threw at it.

The Bruins could have used some of both on Saturday.

Jordan Bachynski, as imposing a figure as the Pac-12 has, scored 22 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked six shots.

“I hadn’t even heard of the guy and he was huge,” Shabazz Muhammad said.

Whether Muhammad meant “huge” literally or figuratively was unclear, and irrelevant anyways.

The Bruins didn’t have a full stable with Travis Wear sidelined, and, down to seven scholarship players, never established its up-tempo offense.

When possessions drag out through the shot clock, the Bruins thrive on their mid-range shooting. It’s a type of shot many teams have abandoned, either going for the easier two-pointers by the basket or the more rewarding threes.

The catalysts for UCLA’s mid-range game are the Wear twins, 6-foot-10-inch forwards who play like shooting guards the way they jump-start the Bruins’ jump-shooting.

UCLA was down a Wear on Saturday and David did little to make up for his brother’s absence. During a second half in which he shot 0-for-6, “Not Travis” air-balled one shot, missed badly off the backboard on another and sent a wide-open layup straight into the front of the rim.

Whether shots were getting blocked or not, they weren’t going in for the Bruins. They shot 41 percent from the field during the first half shooting an especially chilly 29 percent after halftime.

Arizona State’s shot chart looked different. Bachynski didn’t take a shot that wasn’t a layup or dunk attempt. Other Sun Devils like Carrick Felix didn’t take a single mid-range shot, doing his damage with layups, dunks and threes and nothing in between (apart from free-throws, which ASU did better on Saturday by getting to the line 19 times to UCLA’s six).

Bachynski and Felix combined to make 18 of 24 shots, all that the Sun Devils needed on a day when leading scoring Jahii Carson shot 4-for-16.

The best candidate for bodying up the 7-foot-2-inch Bachynski would have been 6-foot-11-inch freshman center Tony Parker, but he picked up two fouls in his first three minutes and defended like a matador for fear of picking up another.

This isn’t to say that any team with a big inside presence will beat UCLA, or we would have seen Arizona do just that on Thursday night. But the Wildcats didn’t. UCLA consistently ran faster than Arizona’s bigs could and pushed them away from the basket.

That’s UCLA’s formula for winning. On Saturday, the key to beating the Bruins was on display. The rest of the conference (like USC, with two 7-footers) are taking notes.

E-mail Menezes at rmenezes@media.ucla.edu.