Bruins outroar Cougars, 86-76
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 8, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior Earl
Watson attempts to retrieve the ball last night in
Pullman, Wash., during the Bruins’ victory over Washington State,
86-76. UCLA 86 WSU 76
By Chris Umpierre
Daily Bruin Staff
PULLMAN, Wash. “”mdash; Maybe Jason Kapono should demand the ball
more often.
Just five days after complaining he didn’t get enough
touches in UCLA’s 85-79 loss to Stanford, the UCLA
men’s basketball team made an effort to get the ball in the
hands of their preseason All-American sharpshooter, and Kapono
responded with a monster game.
The sophomore, who had just 12 shots in the last two games,
dropped a career-high-tying 28 points on 10-of-19 shooting to lead
No. 13 UCLA (21-7, 14-3 Pac-10) to a 86-76 win over a feisty
Washington State (12-15, 5-12) team Thursday night.
The victory in front of a sparse 3,740 spectators leaves the
Bruins in second place in the Pac-10 and closer to getting a No. 2
or No. 3 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament.
“This is the regular Jason Kapono,” said forward
Matt Barnes. “Jason can average 25 a game if he was playing
for a different team, but we have a lot of great scorers on this
team.
The 28 points were the most Kapono has scored in a month.
Kapono, who entered Thursday averaging 17 points a game, also
scored 28 points against DePaul on Feb. 10. He had largely
disappeared in recent games, averaging only 10 points his last
three games.
After the game, Kapono was apologetic for what he said Saturday
and said he made the comments out of frustration.
“It wasn’t like I was trying to make a statement to
get more shots, it was just that I got mad and frustrated (after
the loss),” Kapono said. “It was one of those things
that I was mad that we lost and I felt I could have helped my team
by scoring.
However, according to UCLA senior point guard Earl Watson, there
was nothing different with the team’s offense on
Thursday.
“Nothing’s changed the whole year,” he said.
“The media blows things up. Everyone scored and everyone was
happy (tonight).”
UCLA didn’t look so happy during the first half as the
heavy-underdog Cougars gave the Bruins all they could handle and
then some.
Spearheaded by a huge first half from usual benchwarmer Jerry
McNair, who scored 11 points, the Cougars had the Bruins on their
heels as they led for most of the first half.
WSU’s play so excited their fans that the Cougar student
section amazingly began to chant “Over-rated” towards
the UCLA players just five minutes into the game after their team
took an early lead.
“It’s ignorant,” Watson said. “They
haven’t even won the game and they’re chanting
that.”
Behind some red-hot shooting (75 percent from three-point range
in the first half), the Cougars led by as much as 11 points (29-18)
at the 8:30 mark. UCLA then went on a 13-3 run to close the gap,
eventually going into halftime tied at 40.
Washington State, which loves to scratch and hustle for the
ball, was getting to UCLA.
At one point in the first half, after the referees mistakenly
called a foul on Kapono instead of Watson, the Bruin point guard
approached the scorer’s table and said, “The
foul’s on me, stop cheating!”
But the Cougars didn’t go away until halfway through the
second half after they took a 66-65 lead with 9:23 left. It was
their last lead in the game as the Cougars grew visibly more
exhausted towards the end of the game.
“They were executing towards the end and we just got
tired,” said WSU guard Marcus Moore. “I couldn’t
get off the floor to get a rebound at the end.”
Moore, who was forced to singlehandedly beat UCLA’s
full-court press the entire game, said the Bruins “wore him
down.”
The press, which hadn’t been effective lately, played a
key role in UCLA’s victory. The Bruins forced 18 turnovers as
Moore coughed up eight balls.
Barnes felt some of his teammates looked past the Cougars, who
entered the game tied for eighth place in the Pac-10. However, WSU
Head Coach Paul Graham has his team playing inspired ball
lately.
Washington State was coming off a victory over rival Washington
and the week before played No. 1 Stanford close, leading the
Cardinal by eight points at the half.
Apparently, UCLA didn’t see game tape of that game.
“People might have come into this game overlooking this
team, but like we’ve shown before, you can’t overlook
any team,” Barnes said. “We went to Cal and we lost by
30, so you got to play every night like it’s our last
game.”
