Washington Easily Handles UCLA in Seattle
By Bruin Basketball Report
With the ESPN cameras rolling to a national audience and the Bank of America Arena rocking due to Senior's night, the Bruins were easily overcome by a charged-up Washington Huskies team, 97-68.
It was a combination of hot-shooting and pressure defense by Washington that subdued the Bruins who seemingly rolled over and simply gave up even before the first half ended.
The Huskies went into halftime with a commanding 49-26 lead on a sizzling 68% field goal shooting. They finished 59.3% for the game and 52% from three-point territory hitting 11 of 21.
Washington could had eclipsed the century mark against UCLA except for Huskies Coach Lorenzo Romar's classy-move to hold the ball on the final possession. Despite the move, it was still the Huskies' largest margin of victory over the Bruins in history.
The Bruins had trouble handling the Huskies defensive pressure.
Guard Malcolm Lee had difficulty fending off Washington's Venoy Overton's on-ball pressure. It affected Lee's overall game as he finished just 1 of 9 shooting and never was able to get his team in any offensive rhythm.
UCLA's 2-3 defensive zone, which was effective against Washington State two nights earlier, was listless and slow reacting in this game. The Bruin rotations were slow and the players caught out of position way too many times especially considering how much time this team has spent practicing the defense this year.
Forward Nikola Dragovic, in particular, did not react effectively to the opponent's ball movement and the Huskies capitalized on his defensive side of the court numerous times.
Huskies' senior Quincy Pondexter turned his final home game at Washington into a personal highlight show, scoring 10 points in the first 5 minutes, finishing with 20 for the game.
For UCLA, freshman Reeves Nelson gutted out the team's best performance and considering he had 15 stitches over his swollen right eye. Nelson battled for 14 points on 5 of 7 shooting.
Another bright note, in an overall dismal night for Bruin faithful, was freshman Brendan Lane who played perhaps his best game of the season with 5 of 6 shooting for 11 points.
UCLA (7-7, 12-14) heads home for their final two games at Pauley Pavilion this season when they face Oregon and Oregon State next week.
BBR :: Article Link :: 12:53 PM ::
6 comments
6 Comments:
We need to bench Dragovic. He is less than one dimensional. He has always been a defensive liability but now his offense has tanked. He looks distracted. Time to move on to the freshman. We need to win the tournament in order to make the NCAA. We can play Lane and Moser. Use Morgen to spell Reeves. Someone needs to light up Anderson. He has known that he would be the starting point guard since Holiday declared for the draft. Let Lee go back to two even if roll has to play point.
My fear is that next year's point guard play will be more of the same. It is very clear that Lee cannot play the point. The JC point guard Jones is somewhat of an unknown quantity, but there haven't been a lot of JC point guards excelling in Division 1. Abdul-Hamid has his own athletic limitations and may not come back next year anyway, as he would have to decide to stay at UCLA in graduate school. So we will probably have Anderson as our starting point guard again. I hope that either 1) Anderson's shortcomings this year can be traced back to his injuries, which will have healed by then; and/or 2) Anderson improves dramatically between his sophomore and junior years. Is there any possibility at all of getting any of the highly regarded PG's this year? Is UCLA in the running for any of them next year?
You migt as well have put 5 orange cones on the court to represent the 2-3 zone and they would have stoped the Huskies better than this group. They must think that if you stay in your spot and move 2-3 feet to either side that you are playing defense. There was no a sinle WU shot contested. They spotted the soft spots and just nailed every shot.
Notice how the pupils are schoolingbthe master; Lorenzo Lomar, Jamie Dixon ... heck even Steve Lavin knows whats wrong with the Bruins.
Howland has to go ... now.
Biglar, yes... we are in the running for Ray McCallum. According to Scout.com, he is a 5 star player - the #7 ranked PG in the 2010 High School class. It would be a huge get for UCLA. We NEED him BAD!
Ray... you readin' this????
Calling all h.s. senior point guards...open spot waiting for you at UCLA! Big name school. Awesome weather. Hot chicks. Good draft attention. Pick up games with Kobe. Make a rap album on the side.
I continue with my broken record that Howland HAS to go after Ray McCallum. I have seen some clips and he appears poised and looks "strong", something our guards have lacked fdor years (other than Afflalo). Maybe with McCallum AND Lazeric Jones, we can then rotate in Anderson during big leads or garbage time. Lee shoot revert back to the 2 guard and only concentrate on competing with Tyler lamb for the starting position. Lee won't have Roll to keep bailing him out next year!!!
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