Online Extra: UCLA breezes through first round of NCAA Tournament

By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

PITTSBURGH – Finally, some progress.

OK, so the UCLA men’s basketball team didn’t
suddenly go from being an unranked team to a Final Four contender
after beating Ole Miss 80-58 in the first round of the NCAA
Tournament at Mellon Arena in front of 17,015 Friday night.

The Bruins’ performance, like most of their previous
outings, was flawed in several respects. They continued to turn the
ball over (18 times) and give up offensive rebounds (16), signs
usually associated with short stints in the Big Dance.

But the Bruins (20-11) managed to make a bad team look bad,
which they hadn’t been able to do all season.

That, of course, may not be of any importance when eighth-seeded
UCLA faces No. 1 seed Cincinnati on Sunday. Yet, it appeared to be
a titanic step forward for head coach Steve Lavin’s squad,
which made the Rebels (20-11) look like an NIT No. 9 seed and
equaled its biggest margin of victory this season.

The Rebels couldn’t hold onto the ball. They missed
lay-ups. They missed runners. They missed mid-range jumpers. They
missed threes. They let Rico Hines score seven points.

UCLA had faced similarly inept teams before – UC Riverside,
Oregon State, UC Irvine, Columbia and Washington State, to name a
few – but in almost all of those contests, the Bruins had a
late-game let-up, a lapse in concentration.

Not this time.

Ole Miss’ only significant run of the game came late in
the first half when unassuming Rebel swingman Aaron Harper hit
three straight three-pointers – a surge that hardly could have been
prevented.

“We have to keep doing that 40-minute thing,” said
freshman guard Dijon Thompson, who scored a career-high 16 points.
“If we go out and play hard the whole game, we’ll beat
teams.”

Prior to the contest, it was speculated that Ole Miss’
short, quick lineup would give the Bruins trouble. UCLA’s
size, meanwhile, was supposed pose a threat for the Rebels, whose
tallest starter stood 6-foot-8.

And it was, at first, the most awkward of clashes, a
confrontation in which the countless mismatches on the court made
the early stages of the contest difficult to describe.

The Rebels, due to the zone thrown at them, couldn’t get
any penetration and were forced to take long three-pointers to
avoid shot-clock violations. The Bruins, on the other hand,
couldn’t get Dan Gadzuric going, since the 6-11 senior was
unable to secure position down low.

For a significant portion of the first half, the two squads
stared at each other and postured, confused by what they saw
unfolding on the court. After 10 minutes of play, the teams had
scored a mere 21 points combined.

Then Lavin switched to a younger and smaller lineup. He put Ryan
Walcott, Rico Hines, Dijon Thompson, Andre Patterson and T.J.
Cummings on the court and pressed.

And pressed.

And pressed.

The defensive pressure led to turnovers, which in turn led to
Bruin scores. Between the eight and five minute marks of the first
half, UCLA reeled off 15 straight points, building a 28-13
advantage.

Harper’s spurt gave Ole Miss life, but UCLA nonetheless
led 36-26 at the half.

“The young guys showed energy and spark,” Lavin
said. “We used the hockey-style substitution pattern, which
seemed to work well.”

The slaying of the Rebels persisted in the second half. UCLA
senior guard Billy Knight, who had 21 points in the game, came out
of the locker room and hit three straight threes.

Ole Miss now found itself incapable of getting stops and
incapable of scoring. Regardless of whether it faced the zone
employed by UCLA’s starters or the press used by the Bruin
reserves, the Rebels couldn’t put the ball through the
hoop.

The Rebels finished the game shooting 33.9 percent from the
floor and hit only 28.6 percent of their 35 three-point field goal
attempts. Jason Harrison, Ole Miss’ 5-5 point guard, was
unable to score a single point before the final buzzer.

“They played that zone and we couldn’t get the ball
inside,” Ole Miss guard Emmanuel Wade said. “They
really corrupted our offense.”

“We got behind and it was totally their game plain and
simple,” Rebel head coach Rod Barnes said. “They put
pressure on us. They pressured us offensively and defensively. When
they got the ball, they got out, ran the floor and really hit
shots.”

The game was lopsided enough that Lavin gave reserve forward
Josiah Johnson some time on the floor.

And when one fan screamed, “Put in the other guy,
Lavin,” Lavin obliged and inserted seldom-used center John
Hoffart into the contest.

“I’m very proud of the team,” Lavin said.
“After the loss to Oregon on Senior Day and getting knocked
out of the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament by Cal, it
would’ve been easy to be lower than a snake’s belly. We
were able to bounce back and show some resilience.”

“It was good to get a big win,” Knight added.
“People talk about teams getting hot going into the
tournament, but what matters is what you do once you get
here.”