LOS ANGELES – The flying machine is airborne once more.
And nobody at Pauley Pavilion even saw it refuel.
UCLA was not only defeated, but dormant against Oregon in the first half Thursday night, and through much of the second. Lonzo Ball was strangely uninvolved. Oregon’s Dillon Brooks was grimly adding to his NBA audition tape.
There were wide-open spaces in the UCLA defense. There were gobs of molasses on the floor when the Bruins tried to run. At one point Oregon led, 37-18.
On previous nights like this, against Oregon and USC and Arizona, the Bruins had trouble emerging from turbulence. This time they straightened out and flew right, and managed to pluck an 82-79 victory out of chaos and noise.
Ball hit big 3s down the stretch, including a 30-footer that gave the Bruins an impregnable five-point lead with 32 seconds left.
He wound up with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Hey, not everybody in the family can score 92.
“It wasn’t just me in the second half, it was the whole team,” Ball said. “We’re always better when we can run, when we don’t have to go up against their press in every possession. We guarded a lot better.”
Ike Anigbogu, another freshman, was massive in the second half, repeatedly saying no to Oregon at the rim.
Bryce Alford, who kept the Bruins from dissolving completely in the first half, dribbled around and found Aaron Holiday for a critical 3-pointer. And Oregon, which flowed like the mighty Willamette for 30 minutes, suddenly got apprehensive. The Ducks either overpassed, or they shot too impulsively, and not even a hail of second and third chances could bail them out. It added up, or down, to three field goals in the final 12 minutes.
What this did was reinforce the pedigree of the Pac-12’s three Top 10 teams. Arizona is 11-1 in league, Oregon 10-2 and UCLA 9-3, as is Cal. Thanks to silly scheduling, the Bruins don’t visit the Bay Area, but they do have troublesome USC at Pauley next Saturday, and they play at Arizona on Feb. 25. It should make for a particularly contentious Pac-12 Tournament, and maybe some close encounters in the NCAAs.
“This is probably the first time I can say we really won a game with our defense instead of our offense,” UCLA coach Steve Alford said. “We’ve been making shots all year. We shot over 50 percent and scored in the 80s again. But I think we’ve been gathering momentum defensively lately, and this was part of it.”
That’s how Alford felt after the game, mind you. He wasn’t quite as chipper at halftime, and after Oregon hit UCLA with an 11-point run in the first three minutes of the second half, he called an exasperated timeout.
“We’re going to give up 70 like this,” he told the Bruins. “That’s embarrassing.”
In the second half the Ducks missed 20 of 30 shots and UCLA outrebounded them by eight. Anigbogu had six rebounds and two blocked shots after halftime. His ominous muscle inside is something no other Bruin can duplicate. More of that from him, and UCLA might extend its season by a weekend or two.
“That was probably the best defense we’ve played all year,” Anigbogu said. “It came down to pride more than anything.”
“It’s all about confidence,” Coach Alford said. “We can make shots offensively so we’re confident. But we need to realize that we can be confident defensively, too. We weren’t sticking with our principles in the first half. In the second half, things changed, and Ike was absolutely huge for us. That’s as active as he’s been.”
One change was Ball guarding Brooks. Another was Tyler Dorsey going 3 for 10 after the half. Another was UCLA center Thomas Welsh, who couldn’t find a place to even attempt one of his customary 12-footers in the first half. He went 6 for 7 in the second.
In the first half Oregon stayed on the continuous loop of 3-pointers that it used to demolish Arizona by 35 points on Saturday. The Ducks were enjoying it, too, maybe a little too publicly. When Jordan Bell (of Long Beach) swished an 18-footer that was uncontested by Ball, he skipped his way downcourt. When Chris Boucher unwound for a 3-pointer from the corner, Dylan Ennis shimmied at the scorer’s table.
No one could have foreseen, at that point, that the last dances would belong to the home team.
“That’s the best home crowd we’ve had in four years,” Alford said.
The crowd would probably retort that it was the best Bruins home win in about four years. Applause follows performance, smoothness follows adjustment. Funny how that works.
Contact the writer: mwhicker@scng.com
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