Full-game video from Super sachin
Post-game comments from Coach Cronin, Eric Dailey Jr., and Skyy Clark
No. 22 UCLA Downs No. 14 Gonzaga, 65-62
December 28, 2024 | Men's Basketball
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The No. 22-ranked UCLA men's basketball team outlasted No. 14-ranked Gonzaga, 65-62, in the first collegiate basketball game played at Intuit Dome before a crowd of 12,272 on Saturday afternoon.
In a non-conference contest that featured three lead changes and eight ties, the Bruins (11-2) took the lead for good with 33 seconds to play. Trailing by a 60-58 margin, Sebastian Mack scored under the basket and drew a foul, knocking down the free throw with 33 seconds left to give UCLA a 61-60 cushion.
The Bruins' defense forced a missed 3-pointer by Gonzaga on the other end of the court, before Skyy Clark's free throws with 13 seconds left put the Bruins on top, 63-60. Clark was a perfect 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the game's final 13 seconds, helping to seal the win for UCLA.
With 13 seconds remaining, Gonzaga (9-4) quickly answered with a layup from Ryan Nembhard, who was fouled on the play. Nembhard missed the ensuing free throw attempt, which was rebounded by Clark, who made another pair of free throws with five seconds left to give UCLA a 65-62 advantage. Gonzaga was unsuccessful on its final possession, missing a long-heave from near the half-court line.
The Bruins finished the game having shot 50 percent (12-for-24) from 3-point range and 36.4 percent overall (20-for-55). Gonzaga made 7 of 24 long-range attempts (29.2 percent) and finished the game having shot 45.5 percent overall (25-for-55).
"I know we can shoot because I see us every day," said Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach. "Shooting can come and go. We started off bad … I think that stats can sometimes be skewed, especially when you play games that you win by 60 or 70 points, which they do. So I don't know, I haven't cued up their stats against high major opponents, and it's not the same as their overall shooting stats. But we did try to spread them out and we did try to post our guards today. Eric [Dailey Jr.] didn't even practice. He got his mask in today for his nose. He hasn't even practiced with it and goes 4-for-5 from three and 4-for-6 from the line. That's what happens when you live in the gym."
Clark came close to logging a triple-double, totaling 11 points, nine rebounds and seven assists (team-highs for UCLA in rebounds and assists). Eric Dailey Jr. led UCLA in scoring with 18 points and was 4-of-5 on 3-pointers.
Kobe Johnson scored 12 points off a career-high-tying four 3-pointers and added eight rebounds, and Lazar Stefanovic also scored in double digits with 10 points.
Graham Ike led Gonzaga with 24 points on 11-of-16 shooting and added seven rebounds. Ryan Nembhard was Gonzaga's only other player to score in double figures, totaling 16 points and a team-best eight assists.
Gonzaga jumped out to a 7-3 lead to start the contest before the Bruins tied the game, 7-7, on a pair of free throws by Dailey and a jumper by Stefanovic. The Bulldogs regained the lead, 11-7, while holding UCLA scoreless for nearly five minutes, but consecutive 3-pointers by Stefanovic and Clark gave UCLA a 13-11 advantage with 7:29 to play in the half.
Three three-point plays – a Dailey Jr. three, a Trent Perry and-one and a 3-pointer by Tyler Bilodeau – opened UCLA's lead to 22-13 with 5:29 remaining. The Bruins used a 17-2 scoring run during that stretch, capped by a Clark jump shot to forge ahead, 24-13. Gonzaga rallied back at the end of the first half, scoring nine consecutive points to cut its deficit to just 27-25 at the intermission.
After Gonzaga scored a quick basket to start the second half (tying the game, 27-27), UCLA went on an 8-0 run, bookended by a pair of Kobe Johnson 3-pointers to go up, 35-27.
Ike scored his ninth point of the second half on a 3-pointer to tie the game, at 37-37, before Dailey answered with two consecutive 3-pointers to put the Bruins up, 43-37. Gonzaga went on another scoring run, 8-0 over 1:16, including a pair of fast break 3-pointers, to regain the lead at 45-43 with 12:22 left. A 3-pointer by Emmanuel Innocenti at 9:09 gave Gonzaga a 49-45 lead.
Johnson's 3-point basket (his fourth of the game) with 3:24 to play tied the score at 57-57.
Both teams traded free throws, as the score was knotted up 58-58 with under two minutes remaining. After a missed jump shot by Gonzaga, Mack was fouled headed to the hoop but missed both free throw attempts.
The Bulldogs came back with a short jumper by Nembhard at 0:56 to take the lead, 60-58, but Mack made up for his earlier missed free throws with an and-one opportunity to give UCLA a 61-60 cushion with 33 seconds left.
UCLA's win snapped a four-game losing streak in the all-time series against Gonzaga. UCLA and Gonzaga have faced each other in each of the last five seasons (including this season), with two of those games taking place in the NCAA Tournament.
The Bruins will next play on the road at Nebraska in a Big Ten Conference game on Saturday, Jan. 4. UCLA's contest in Lincoln, Neb., will be televised on FOX at 11 a.m. PT (1 p.m. CT).
UCLA will return home to face Michigan on Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m. (PT) in Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom.
Game Notes: UCLA tied its season high for made 3-pointers (12, also against Oregon on Dec. 8) … Kobe Johnson tied his career high for made 3-pointers (four, accomplished in two prior games) … Eric Dailey Jr. made a career-best four 3-pointers on Saturday … Skyy Clark grabbed a career-best nine rebounds and tied his season high in assists (seven) … Clark was 4-for-4 at the free throw stripe, with all four of those attempts taking place in the game's final 15 seconds … UCLA has closed the non-conference portion of its schedule with 11 wins in 13 games (and will now enter a stretch of 18 consecutive Big Ten games).
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 65, Gonzaga 62
Inglewood, Calif. (Intuit Dome)
December 28, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening remarks
“I appreciate [Steve] Balmer and my good friend Lawrence Frank. We’ve been trying to make this game happen. Not necessarily Gonzaga, but I wanted to be the first college game in here. Obviously, I haven’t had a chance to tour it around here but the atmosphere of the game was tremendous. Congratulations to them on the arena. Thanks for having us. Obviously, a good win for us. We knew it was going to be a war. We knew they weren’t going to go anywhere. Although they’re sixth in the Kenpom, they really don’t have a big win outside of Baylor at home. They don’t have a win over a ranked team, so we knew they were coming to get us. … So this was a big game for them. Forget rivalries and all that. In this season and where they’re at and because of their stumble against West Virginia and Kentucky in Seattle. UConn in New York across the country was almost impossible right now. We put a premium on this game. And before you ask, previous years have nothing to do with this game.”
on how he saw the team finish against Gonzaga after the North Carolina loss
“Well, we played a lot smarter until [Sebastian Mack’s] play when we said if they take a layup, we weren’t going to foul. If they took their time to run a play for a three we were going to foul and they went for the layup. But fortunately, Sebastian understands and know he made a mistake. It happens. I can coach him about it and talk to him about it and he’s probably not going to go to the owner and get me fired like Sacramento did. … Other than that play, we played really smart down the stretch.”
on what this win means heading into conference play
“Well, look, I’ve got a lot of issues. It’s my opinion that we should be undefeated. That being said, it’s really irrelevant in college basketball. You’ve got to get in the tournament. You obviously want to take on the west coast being where we are in an east coast league. You try to win the tournament. That’s what life at UCLA is. That’s why I came to UCLA. Win or lose today, I was a miserable human for a couple of days after the North Carolina game. But you’ve got to be mature enough to realize even if you win, you got to get better. And we got 18 Big Ten games left. I think our next game is at Nebraska. It’s been two years since they’ve lost at home or something. It’s not going to stop. You got to use all of these things as a chance to get better. And these guys, they are getting paid now, and as much as they love my sweet demeanor and soft touch as their coach, they’d like to play professional. So they’ve got to get better. That’s how I look at every day. You can ask me if I ever come to practice without intensity. I try to tell them this is what you’ve got to do to be a pro. That’s why Kobe Bryant was my favorite player because that’s who he was every day.”
on how Gonzaga’s spacing was able to help UCLA generate offense
“I know we can shoot because I see us every day. Shooting can come and go. We started off bad. … I think that stats can sometimes be skewed. Especially when you play games that you win by 60 or 70 points, which they do. So I don’t know. I haven’t cued up their stats against high major opponents and it’s not the same as their overall shooting stats. But we did try to spread them out and we did try to post our guards today. Eric (Dailey Jr.) didn’t even practice. He got his mask in today for his nose. He hasn’t even practiced with it and goes 4-for-5 from three and 4-for-6 from the line. Well that’s what happens when you live in the gym.”
on defending Graham Ike
“Well, we doubled him a few times. The truth of it is, I thought they went to the pick and roll. Mark [Few] tried to run a few times away from their bench where they tried to run a screen, turn out their best shooter, [Ryan] Nembhard, and then throw it in. Kobe didn’t let Nembhard catch it. I think that Mark tried to set a few post ups up, but it just didn’t happen. We didn’t let them get the ball from A to B to C.”
on contributions from his bench
“Early on, I thought Trent [Perry] played pretty well. I tried to get a time to get him back in and I couldn’t find it. I don’t look at certain guys as bench players. To me, Lazar Stefanovic and Sebastian [Mack] – those guys are all really good players. We could rotate starting lineups. Obviously, we didn’t have William [Kyle III] today, so we played nine instead of 10. [Aday Mara] was getting fouled every time he touched the ball. It was ridiculous. His size is his skill if you’re not just holding, grabbing, poking and just fouling him all the time. So it’s tough for him. I told them it was going to be World War III today. I told them it was coming. It’s hard for [Mara] to display his talent.
UCLA guard Skyy Clark
on how he felt he did pressuring Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard
“He’s a great point guard. He’s averaging 10 assists. It’s very hard to speed him up. He’s similar to his brother who was also at Gonzaga. I was just trying to do my best to contain him. I had active hands in the pick and roll. We knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hit the pocket on the pick and roll. Just trying to take him away from that as much as possible to really stop their offense.”
on what he thought after Nembhard missed his free throw in the final seconds
“I just knew Coach Cronin told me we were up one. He’s been teaching us that hit the front of the rim when you’re shooting a free throw. So I was really trying to focus on that. He said 95 percent of those shot go in.”
on bouncing back after the North Carolina loss
“It means a lot. We knew we let a big one slip away in New York. We are still feeling that. But we’ve got to learn from it and move on. We just came into this game hungry. We did not want to lose at all. That was our mindset.”
UCLA forward Eric Dailey Jr.
on how it felt to play with the mask
“It felt a little different. I put in hours in the gym, so just finding the rhythm. It wasn’t that bad.”
UCLA guard Kobe Johnson
on contributions from multiple players against Gonzaga
“When I was out, the team was playing great. We had guys like Laz [Stefanovic] and Skyy [Clark] step up for me. When you’ve got people who are able to step up in your spot that’s definitely something that’s good on this team. I just knew I had to come in the second half and just do the right things and make the right plays.”
on his mindset in the second half
“You saw my confidence kept going up every time I kept hitting the shots. Being able to stay mindful of the game and not try to get too much into it helped me stay in it.”
on the team’s shooting performance
“That happens in practice every now and then, but one I get it going, I get it going.”
on his message to the team after the Gonzaga foul at the end of the game
“Just finish the game out. I’m pretty sure we were up one at that point. We were celebrating like we won the game, and I just wanted to make in sure all the guys knew that we didn’t win quite yet. We had to stick it out and finish out how many seconds were left on the clock and get the win.”
on refining his game as the season goes on
“Coach Cronin trusts me a whole lot to have the ball in my hands, so when I got the ball in my hands, I’ve got to make the right plays and make the right decisions. Just being able to continue to build his trust in me is only going to build the confidence within me to have the ball a whole lot more as a playmaker for this team.”
on Eric Dailey Jr.’s work ethic
“Every time I go into the gym, he’s always on the gun doing something in the gym. Eric lives in the gym. Any time he can get his shots up, he’s always going into the gym to get his shots up. Whether that’s before film session, after film session, anytime he can get into the gym, he’s getting his shots in. Being able to see somebody like that so young and so hungry, it motivates the whole team to want to be dawgs as well. He was here [in the gym on Christmas Eve]. He was in LA. I think he got back Christmas Eve and I believe he was in the gym right away.”
Thanks, Fox, for the video highlights, Super sachin for the full game video, and UCLA Men's Basketball for the box score, game summary, and quotes.
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