Last-second heroics avert upset

Monday, January 12, 1998

Last-second heroics avert upset

M. BASKETBALL: Rookies overcome Oregon’s surge, take 68-66
win

By Mark Shapiro

Daily Bruin Staff

It only took six minutes for the 10th-ranked UCLA men’s
basketball team to open a 20-point lead against Oregon on Saturday
night. It took 33 minutes for the Bruins to let the Ducks come
back, and 25 electrifying seconds for freshmen superstars Earl
Watson and Baron Davis to add to their growing legacy.

It was Watson who came up with a steal with 25 seconds to go in
a game tied at 66, and it was Davis who took Watson’s pass and
scored the game-winning basket, sealing a 68-66 victory in a game
that the Bruins nearly gave away.

"I poked the ball away and Earl got it," Davis said. "I sprinted
downcourt as fast as I could and I knew he was going to find me to
lay it up."

The rookies’ heroics took the spotlight off of the Bruin’s
near-disastrous letdown late in the game, in which they allowed a
19-point lead to become a three-point deficit in the second
half.

UCLA (12-2, 3-1 Pac-10) got off to a roaring start, opening up a
23-3 lead six minutes into the game behind a choking full-court
press, and maintained a double-figure lead until midway through the
second half.

An 11-0 run sparked the Ducks’ comeback, however, and with five
minutes to go in the game, Oregon had rallied to take a 62-59
lead.

"We sure have a way of making things interesting," UCLA head
coach Steve Lavin said. "We have lapses once we have big leads and
that’s a deficiency that we have to work on. If we’re going to have
a great season, we can’t afford those lapses."

As if the collapse wasn’t enough, the Bruins found themselves
without the services of senior J.R. Henderson, who was poked in the
right eye and left the game with 9:39 to go in the first half.

But as the tide began to turn in the Ducks favor, Henderson
returned with a noticeably swollen right eye, and scored a game
tying basket on a sweeping hook shot with one minute to go.

"(The eye) was watering up constantly, I had a terrible
headache," Henderson said. "I was kind of dazed when I went out
there. I could hardly see the basket when I put up my hook. I just
got lucky and it went in."

While their play in the second half bordered on the mediocre,
the first half was nothing short of spectacular, as the Bruins
raced to a 44-28 lead.

From the opening tip-off, the Bruins jumped all over Oregon,
forcing 15 first half turnovers behind a newly implemented full
court press and stingy zone defense. Davis was the lightning rod on
both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor, coming up with
three steals, seven assists and six points in the first half.

It was that same strategy that nearly cost the Bruins the game,
as the Ducks solved the press and began to break down the UCLA
zone, coming up with a number of baskets from close range. Forward
A.D. Smith paced Oregon with 23 points on 9-10 shooting

"We were working on our full-court press and zone defense
because we’re going to need those two things," Lavin said. "Those
first 10 minutes showed how disruptive our press can be. My biggest
area of concern was our interior defense.

"I knew I was taking a risk, because we’ll probably never play
that much zone defense in a game for rest of the year, and we’ll
probably never press like we did in the first half, but to be able
to work on those things and still get a win, that’s the difficult
thing."

PATRICK LAM

Freshman Earl Watson stole the ball in the final seconds of
Saturday’s game to help the Bruins to a 68-66 victory.