UCLA (13-11, 6-5 Pac-12) played its best basketball game of the season sans their 18 turnovers to upset No. 23 ranked Arizona (16-7, 6-4 Pac-12) 4th the McKale Center in Tucson, 65-52.
The Bruins and Wildcats started the game off exchanging threes in the first minute, and it looked like for a moment in time that UCLA's three-point defense was going to let them down one more as Arizona scored their first 12 points hitting threes.
UCLA then turned up the defense, and the two teams slugged it out the rest of the half. The Bruins held the Cats to 1-12 shooting to close the first half. UCLA went into the break with confidence and a 29-28 lead.
The Bruins started the second half strong going on a 9-2 run. Then UCLA went on a 4:12 scoring drought, and the Wildcats went on an 8-0 run o to come within one point with less than 10:00 minutes to play.
With the score 45-44, UCLA once again amped it up on the defensive end that spurred a 14-0 run to take control of the game, giving the Bruins the upset.
"You can't play much better than that," The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach, Mick Cronin said. "We kept them out of transition, made them play five-on-five, took our chances, they missed some good looks. Once we controlled the defensive glass, the game was over, which is hard to do against them."
What difference a game makes. UCLA held the Wildcats to shooting 25.4 percent from the field and 26.1 from the three. In contrast, just two nights ago, the Sun Devils shot 58.3 percent from the three and 50.0 percent from the field.
The Bruins get a split in the desert based on tenacious defense that held the Cats 28 points below their season average of 80 points and a Bruin offense that shot 51.1 percent from the floor and an outstanding 52.9 percent from three. When you play the kind of defense the Bruins did and shoot the rock well as the Bruins did, you can overcome a night when you turn the ball over 18 times.
Usually, when you turn the ball over that many times, you lose, but a stubborn defense refused to bend, keeping the Bruins ahead for 25:26 of the game.
Chris Smith led the Bruins in scoring with his game-high 15 points. Tyger Campbell added 12 points and led the Bruins with five assists. The return of Jalen Hill was a welcome sight after missing ASU. He chipped in nine points and led the Bruins with nine rebounds off the bench.
Zeke Nnaji had his 11th double-double of the season leading Arizona in scoring with 14 points and ten rebounds. Josh Green contributed 11 points for the Wildcats.
It was a great bounce-back win for the Bruins against a ranked team. Cronin talks about what led to his team's victory.
"We had a great team meeting last night," Cronin said. "We had a great practice today. We rested on our day in between and did some of our mental stuff. We had a great team meeting yesterday, where I talked to the guys, and it was really the first time that I had talked to them about Cincinnati and how to win these games.
"I had coached in the Big East against top-25 teams. You have to make the other team play five on five. It's not that you don't want to run, you'll run for layups. But you can't let them run for layups. So you can't get your shot blocked. You can't have live-ball turnovers because they'll just go flying on down like Arizona State, where we had given up 27 points on the break.
"Tonight, I'm not sure what it ended up – we had four points on the [fast] break. You've got a chance to win if you do that. You've got to stop a team. They're too good if you give them easy baskets."
The Bruins return home Thursday, February 13, for an 8:00 PM PST tipoff against Washington State (13-10, 4-6 Pac-12). The game will be televised on the Pac-12 Network.
