Low intensity plays into UCLA loss at Stanford

STANFORD, Calif.—On Saturday, a weekday win means nothing. For the third time this season, UCLA made a mess it will spend a whole week cleaning up at home.

After a Wednesday well spent in Berkeley, where UCLA obliterated Cal by 20 points and gave merit to increased NCAA tournament hype, the Bruins waltzed into Maples Pavilion and slid their No. 23 national ranking right back across the hardwood to Associated Press poll voters.

With a real chance to narrow the Pac-12 regular season title chase to a two-horse race, the Bruins were outclassed by a more enthusiastic thoroughbred.

It was time to put up or shut up on the road against a Pac-12 contender, and in an 83-74 upset, UCLA had nothing to say.

The Bruins have gone silent to end three straight road trips, duds following dandies in rapid succession.

In the mountains, a hard-fought defensive battle at Colorado was followed by a flat showing at Utah, with a Friday flight from Denver to Salt Lake City the proposed culprit.

Up in Oregon, an offense that stunned the Ducks in the final seconds in Eugene was dammed by the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis. The Bruins didn’t really have an answer then, but hinted they weren’t as sharp after a three-day break between games.

Saturday marked UCLA’s third time being fooled on the road, so with whom does the shame lie? What slip of paper was drawn out of a hat this time?

“I think they’re probably all a little bit different just because the different teams and that kind of thing and there are different parts of this season,” said coach Steve Alford. “Obviously Stanford came at us really hard tonight and they’re playing for something as we’re playing for something and they shot the ball extremely well.”

Alford’s right. Stanford is different. They wear cardinal and have the nickname to prove it. But what did not change for UCLA in Saturday’s road loss was a lack of fire that bled into crucial stretches during the second half.

The prime example, with just over 16 minutes left in the game, was a highlight made for SportsCenter.

Sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson waded into his defensive stance to counter a charging Chasson Randle. Anderson then watched as a double-alley-oop dunk changed hands from Randle to Anthony Brown to a timely Dwight Powell. The Cardinal played a full game tic-tac-toe before Anderson could even throw out an “X.”

“I think it was just a tough loss,” Anderson said after the game. “I guess the proof is in the pudding. Yeah, you could say that.”

Three days after carrying the Bruins with 28 points against Cal, sophomore guard Jordan Adams likewise had little to offer in the second half, scoring just one of his eight points. UCLA did, however, see marked improvement from junior guard Norman Powell and freshman guard Zach LaVine, who scored 12 and 13 second-half points respectively. Sophomore forward/center Tony Parker even stepped up to make his post presence known, adding eight points in the final 20 minutes.

But UCLA’s start-to-finish intensity never quite matched Stanford’s. It showed in the final score.

“I think when we play people, we’ve got to respect every opponent,” Parker said. “It’s a maturity thing and it’s a thing you’ve got to have to be a champion.”

Wednesday and Thursday exuberance followed by Saturday and Sunday listlessness is not the make of a Pac-12 champion, and fittingly, UCLA now sits two games behind Arizona.

“It was a layup if we win this game. It was easy. It was pretty close,” Parker said of catching the Wildcats. “Now we’re back in the dog hunt and we’ve put other teams in it. We’ve got to get ready for a fight because we weren’t ready tonight and it hurt us really, really bad.”