UCLA basketball: Listless Bruins trail Oregon, 38-24, at the half
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Details tend to be important this time of year.
Especially when you mess them up as badly as UCLA did in the first half of its Pacific Life Pac-10 quarterfinal.
The Bruins received a technical foul for having six players on the court coming out of a timeout, and normally reliable shooter Jerime Anderson made only one of six free-throw attempts, just two of several disconcerting developments that plagued UCLA as Oregon took a 38-24 halftime lead Thursday evening at Staples Center.
Sophomore forward Reeves Nelson, the Bruins’ leading scorer, missed all three of his shots and went scoreless, indicative of a team that shot only 24% to Oregon’s 41.9%.
Forward E.J. Singler had 11 points for the Ducks, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer. Nelson and Oregon’s Jay-R Strowbridge had a testy exchange walking off the floor.
UCLA guard Malcolm Lee, playing in the first game since he was diagnosed with a small cartilage tear in his left knee, made one of two shots and has three points. Sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt leads the Bruins with 11 points, though six came at the free-throw line.
It resembled in many ways the first half of UCLA’s game against Washington State last weekend, with the Bruins coming out flat and getting carved up by backdoor layups. The Cougars had used Oregon’s offensive sets in that game, and it appears UCLA still doesn’t know how to defend against them.
The Bruins can only hope the rest of the game is a repeat of what happened in Pullman, Wash., since UCLA rallied from a 13-point halftime deficit for an eventual 58-54 victory in overtime.
-- Ben Bolch