Bruins give up huge lead, squeak past Michigan State, 78-76
By Matt Stevens
March 17, 2011 9:06 p.m.
TAMPA, Fla. ““ Behind an outstanding first half, the Bruins edged out Michigan State by the narrowest of margins, clinging to a 78-76 win Thursday night in Tampa.
The No. 7-seeded Bruins (23-10) relinquished a 23-point lead in the second half, going three-for-12 from the free-throw line in the last 1:31 of the game. They needed a traveling violation from Spartan senior guard Kalin Lucas in the final 4.4 seconds to seal the deal.
UCLA’s 100th tournament victory sets up a date with No. 2-seed Florida on Saturday.
Despite their near collapse, the Bruins held Tom Izzo’s team to 31 percent shooting from the field in the first half and took an 18-point lead into halftime. A trio of UCLA guards held Lucas, the Spartans’ leading scorer, to 11 points on four-of-14 shooting.
The Spartans cut the lead to one when freshman guard Keith Appling nailed a 3-pointer from the wing.
UCLA had to take a timeout initially after the bucket, unable to solve the MSU press. Then, when junior guard Malcolm Lee was fouled coming out of the timeout, he hit only one of two free throws to give the Spartans the ball with 4.4 seconds left.
When Lee’s miss was outletted to Lucas, the senior with more than 200 minutes of tournament experience traveled as he moved up the right sideline under heavy defensive pressure. The travel was called rather than a foul, giving the Bruins the ball and the game.
UCLA will play at 12:30 p.m. PST on Saturday.
We’ll have more tournament coverage on dailybruin.com shortly.
