UCLA down and out in fall to Cal

  DANIEL WONG/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior forward
Matt Barnes scratches his head in disbelief as the
UCLA men’s basketball team falls to Cal 67-61. Cal 67 UCLA
61

By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

In a season in which the UCLA Bruins seem to be as puzzled as
the those on the outside, their 67-61 loss to Cal put their
dysfunction on display in front 17,839 at the Staples Center.

By the time tip-off rolled around, it was almost time for the 10
o’clock news.

In the fourth Pac-10 Tournament game of the night, it
wasn’t clear who was more sedated ““ the crowd or the
laid-back Bruins.

UCLA’s defense was consistently a step too slow and the
Bruins’ ball-handling led them to several early turnovers.
Lavin consistently rotated through a bigger lineup.

“Cal is a strong team,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin
said. “They are the number one defensive team in the
conference in several categories, and they made it difficult to get
good looks underneath the basket.”

The last time UCLA faced Cal, Lavin was burned by a rotating
zone. He tried a trapping defense in the first half this time
around. That didn’t seem to work either, with Cal’s Joe
Shipp racking up six easy inside points.

And it didn’t get much better on the other side of the
ball. The Bruins had gotten an offensive face-lift a few weeks back
once Lavin implemented the motion offense. The Bruins tried that,
too. No dice.

Just four points separated the two teams down the final stretch
of the first half. The Bruins were lucky to only be down by that
much. After opening the game with sloppy ball-handling and porous
defense in the paint, Cal led by as many as nine points, but after
a pair of three-pointers from Matt Barnes, UCLA lagged at a score
of 34-30.

In the glare of the national spot light, Barnes rediscovered his
stroke thanks in part to the attention the Cal defense was giving
center Dan Gadzuric. With two three-pointers in the last four
minutes of the second half, Barnes single-handedly turned
Cal’s nine-point lead into just four.

But guess what? That wasn’t enough either.

The second half looked promising at the start, with Cedric
Bozeman and Jason Kapono scoring right off the bat, giving the
Bruins their first lead at 35-34, since they led 9-8 with 15:21
left in the first half.

Rico Hines took the floor in the second half with 14:41 on the
clock. Hines, the shortest Bruin on the floor, ripped down two
commanding rebounds in a row and did his best to get his teammates
as fired up as he was. He did everything from leaping out of bounds
to saving a ball to converting both ends of a one-and-one, a rarity
for the Bruins on Thursday, bringing UCLA within two at 48-46 with
8:32 to go.

As the minutes ticked by, Cal stretched its lead to 10. Things
weren’t looking good, but just like that, the Bruins were in
it again. And after whittling down Cal’s 10-point lead, UCLA
found itself in a tied game with two minutes remaining.

But with the game tied, the Bruins turned the ball over ““
again. Cal took advantage of the Bruins’ gift and Amit Tamir
went the distance giving Cal a two-point lead at 61-59 with 1:18 to
go.

“Obviously we’re disappointed with the loss, but I
thought the kids did a great job fighting back from 10 points down
and tying the game,” Lavin said. “We just didn’t
get the defensive stops at the end of the game.”

In the midst of what could have been the start of some
game-winning momentum, Gadzuric committed his second foul of the
game, bringing the Bruin comeback machine to a halt. Cal’s
Brian Wethers went to the line and converted both halves of the
one-and-one, putting the game just out of reach at 63-59 with 43
seconds left on the clock.

Cal was able to do what the Bruins weren’t ““ convert
from the free-throw line. Finishing just 9-for-18 from the charity
stripe, the Bruins failed to take advantage of nine easy points
““ points that would have made a difference down the line.

The Bruins find out on Sunday where their first-round game in
the NCAA Tournament will be.

“I don’t think this loss will have a drag
effect,” Kapono said. “We play our best basketball at
this time. And we’re at our best when we’re down and
out.”