Men’s basketball’s adjusted lineup routs Cougars with 33-point margin
Senior forward/center Tony Parker didn’t start Saturday’s game for UCLA men’s basketball. Parker scored 11 points and the Bruins won by 33 over the Washington State Cougars. (Tehya Faulk/Daily Bruin)
Men's basketball
| Washington State | 50 |
| UCLA | 83 |
By Claire Fahy
Jan. 30, 2016 7:35 p.m.
Steve Alford walked into the UCLA men’s basketball locker room following his team’s 83-50 blowout of Washington State and wrote a simple sentence on the whiteboard.
“Tony Parker five-for-five from the line and took a charge.”
It was a message the Bruin coach hadn’t sent all season. He had called out his team’s high turnover volume, poor guard play and lack of defensive effort in previous games, but tonight it was about the effective play of the senior forward/center.
“He’s not in there trying to get stats, he’s trying to be a really good teammate,” Alford said. “I thought tonight he was as good a teammate as I’ve seen and we’ve gotta build on that.”
Parker sacrificed his starting spot to sophomore forward Jonah Bolden Saturday – the first change to the Bruin lineup in two seasons that didn’t involve injury or suspension. The decision came as part of an effort by UCLA’s coaching staff to increase the athleticism of the front court.
“We told him as a staff it wasn’t punishment we just had to try something different,” Alford said. “We have to get more athletic, we have to be able to play the way we like playing a little bit more … and I thought he handled it really well.”
The lineup tweak was successful as five Bruins – including Parker – scored in double digits and the UCLA bench contributed 26 points. Every player in the UCLA eight-man rotation saw over 12 minutes of playing time, allowing the Bruins to launch a balanced attack.
On the defensive end, UCLA (13-9, 4-5 Pac-12) looked like an entirely different team compared to the one that had previously lost two straight games. The Bruins forced the Cougars to commit 18 turnovers and out-rebounded Washington State (9-12, 1-8) 38-32.
“It was our first time really executing that lineup, but I think it went really well. We’re definitely more athletic with Jonah in the game,” said sophomore center Thomas Welsh. “I think it’s going to be helpful for us going forward, it’s going to be more efficient offensively and defensively.”
Offensively, UCLA relied on the production of junior guard Isaac Hamilton, who led all scorers with 22 points and saw the most game time of any Bruin with 34 minutes. In contrast, junior guard Bryce Alford took just five shots for 12 points, making similar changes to Parker in terms of role play.
“Bryce is a great player – he makes plays for everybody else and also for himself,” Hamilton said. “Regardless of him taking five shots or him taking 15, it doesn’t matter, he still has an effect on the game.”
Alford and Parker’s smaller roles amounted to a 33-point win – the Bruins’ largest margin of victory against a conference opponent this season. Next, UCLA heads across town to USC where the Bruins will hope to upset a surging Trojan team.
