Ducks roasted down the stretch as Malcolm Lee and UCLA men’s basketball play a strong second half

Correction: The original version of this article’s headline misspelled the word stretch.

The most exciting part of UCLA’s win over Oregon Thursday night came with 23 seconds left and the game well in hand.

Reeves Nelson was looking to put an exclamation point on the Bruins’ 64-54 victory at Pauley Pavilion with a fast-break dunk, but Jay-R Strowbridge had other ideas.

Oregon’s senior guard fouled Nelson hard ““ and Nelson didn’t appreciate it.

In an instant, the two were face to face, while the whistles tweeted away.

In another instant UCLA coach Ben Howland was in the middle of the death stares, breaking things up himself.

“I was going to go tackle Reeves,” Howland said. “We can’t afford to lose anybody.”

After the game, the sophomore forward simply brushed off the foul.

“I just knew I got hacked pretty hard, and I hurt my ankle so I was kind of upset,” Nelson said.
The Bruins (17-7, 8-3 Pac-10) ultimately handled the Ducks (12-12, 5-7) in a lackluster contest that was far from pretty, but at this juncture of the season, Howland was pleased to simply escape with a win.

“That was an absolutely huge win for us tonight,” Howland said. “I was really worried about this game. … This was a trap game.”

After a sluggish first 30 minutes, the Bruins used a 12-3 spurt late in the second half to take an 11-point lead, their largest of the game.

Junior guard Malcolm Lee paced UCLA, pouring in eight of those 12 points and a season-high 25 for the game. Three other Bruins, including junior guard Jerime Anderson, finished with nine points or more.
Anderson sank two free throws with about 10 minutes left, and 21 seconds later hit a critical 3-pointer to break a 41-41 tie, sparking the Bruins’ second-half run.

“We were just trying to attack (the zone),” Anderson said. “Once the game gets into the second half, you get more comfortable, and you see more things.”

Lee followed Anderson’s five points with an emphatic fast-break dunk, and after a 3-pointer from Oregon forward Joevan Catron, the decisive 12-3 run began.

As it turned out, the Bruins contained the standout senior Catron, who scored only 15 points on 5-of-13 shooting.

UCLA was also aided by the absence of sophomore forward E.J. Singler, who played only 17 minutes because of foul trouble.

Singler, who led the Ducks with 15 points in the last contest against the Bruins, was held to nine on Thursday.

But there were also steps backward for UCLA.

After a 19-point breakout performance Saturday, freshman forward Josh Smith reverted back to his old bad habits, picking up his fourth foul with just under 10 minutes to play.

UCLA also struggled early on against the Oregon zone, shooting only 35 percent en route to a three-point halftime deficit.

But Anderson sees reason for optimism following the team’s eighth win in its last nine games.
“Sometimes we play in spurts,” he said. “But when we’re on, we’re on. So hopefully we can stay on.”