Gadzuric keeps hands off players

  COURTNEY STEWART/Daily Bruin By staying out of foul
trouble, Dan Gadzuric contributed to the Bruins’
victory over Cal.

By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It didn’t come until there were eight minutes left in the
game, and when Dan Gadzuric’s first foul was announced,
applause echoed throughout Pauley Pavilion.

Dan Gadzuric’s first foul wasn’t a leaping
attempted-block. It was more that Cal’s Jamal Sampson got
sandwiched between Gadzuric and Matt Barnes, and Gadzuric got
whistled for the foul.

It was the first game all season that UCLA’s big-man had
held out this long for his first foul. Going into the weekend,
Gadzuric pledged to make changes in his game, citing that he would
try to become more ground-bound and not try to block as much.

Against Stanford, his intent didn’t become reality as
Gadzuric racked up three fouls in his 10 first-half minutes, but on
Saturday against Cal, in another must-win Pac-10 game, Gadzuric
came through big-time for his team, finishing with 13 points, 11
rebounds and one block in 34 minutes.

Before the game, Gadzuric got some advice from Barnes, who made
his mark last season with his relentless defense.

“Before the game I told him to play like I used to in high
school ““ low-key in the first half and then let it all out in
the second,” said Barnes, UCLA’s senior forward.
“He thought it was a good idea and did it. We need Dan
Gadzuric the whole game to be a good team.”

UCLA’s interior defense looked more like a force field
than the sieve it resembled in the Bruins’ 86-76 loss to
Stanford on Thursday, thanks mostly to Gadzuric’s presence.
When the 6-foot-11, 240-pounder is relegated to the bench, the
Bruins lose a great deal of size in their front line.

“(The coaches) went back and looked at the last three
seasons, and any time he plays 30 or more minutes, we’re
a dominant team,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said. “In
Pac-10 play, we have to keep him out of foul trouble.”

Gadzuric’s continuous presence throughout the game was not
something the Cal Bears expected.

“We expected Gadzuric to foul more,” Sampson said.
“Our game plan was to get (Gadzuric) into foul trouble, and
we didn’t follow through with that.”

With Gadzuric’s help inside, UCLA was able to keep Cal in
a seven-minute field-goal drought in the second half as well as
just one field-goal in the final three minutes of the game.

And with 37 seconds on the clock, and the Bruins leading
59-52, Gadzuric snagged a defensive rebound, preventing Cal from
taking another shot. Gadzuric dished the ball to junior forward
Jason Kapono, who took it up-court and drew the foul. With the
addition of Kapono’s two free throws, UCLA could breathe a
sigh of relief.

As the final seconds of the game ticked away, the student
section cheered Gadzuric on, alternating between:
“Who’s house, Dan’s house” and “Dan
Gad-zur-ic.”

With a small smile on his face, Gadzuric held his index finger
in the air.

One. That was the Bruins’ magic number.