Men’s basketball falls to Villanova’s offense at the NIT Season Tip-Off semifinals, 82-70

MANHATTAN, N.Y. ““ The pick-and-roll is basketball’s most fundamental offensive scheme, but if used properly it is a deadly weapon.

Call the “Law and Order” crew because the UCLA men’s basketball team (3-1) was killed by the ball screen at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night as No. 7 Villanova (5-0) ran the play over and over again en route to an 82-70 victory in the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off Tournament.

“Pretty much they were just eating us up on the ball picks,” UCLA junior guard Malcolm Lee said. “It seemed like they were running pick-and-rolls for 40 minutes.”

Villanova coach Jay Wright praised his UCLA counterpart Ben Howland as “one of the top defensive coaches in the game” after the Wildcats fought off several Bruin runs in the second half to advance to Friday’s final against No. 24 Tennessee.

In his own postgame press conference, though, Howland had his reading glasses on, studying the stat sheet, trying to pinpoint exactly where his defensive game-planning had led him astray.

“We probably should have hedged screens differently than we did, and that’s my fault,” he said.

Villanova controlled the game with its offensive aggression, and UCLA spent the whole night trying to catch up.

Villanova senior guard Corey Fisher led all scorers with 26 points, 14 of which were a result of getting to the charity stripe. His backcourt teammates Maalik Wayns and Corey Stokes added 19 and 16 points, respectively, off a lot of on-ball screens at the top of the key that allowed them to sprint past the late Bruin defense.

“Those guards are really good,” sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt said. “They just know how to get to the rack and finish.”

The Bruins were not able to push the ball in transition as has been their goal this season, partially because so many Wildcat possessions ended in made buckets or at least free-throw attempts, which allowed them to set up before UCLA could beat them back down the court.

Even so, UCLA had four players in double figures, including Lee, who led the team with 13 points despite being held scoreless in the first half. Lee, who had missed the Bruins’ last game against Pacific with a sprained ankle, only just rejoined team practices on Tuesday in New York, but he made a difference in the second period.

“I was settling for too many jumpers in the first half, then I just decided I’m going to try to get to the rack … because our team as a whole wasn’t getting to the line,” Lee said. “I was just trying to be more aggressive.”

Sophomore forward Reeves Nelson had his third straight double-double, scoring 10 points and grabbing a team-high 13 rebounds.

The Wildcats started with their foot already on the gas pedal, jumping out to an 8-0 lead, but the Bruins were never far behind in this game with an offensive spurt of their own.

In fact, UCLA was only trailing 30-27 with 4:31 to play in the first half, but then Villanova hit its stride at just the right time. The school from Philadelphia was all of a sudden heading into its Garden locker room up by 15 points.

“We thought we had a chance to win,” Howland said. “So it was disappointing at halftime to be down as much as we were.”

But Howland’s team did not back down after the break, pushing the lead back down into single digits on multiple occasions. UCLA had a player at the free-throw line down six two separate times in the second half, but neither free throw was converted, and that was as close as the Bruins would get to their veteran Big East opponent.

“These experiences will help us,” Howland said. “Bottom line is we have to learn from it.”

Though the Bruins did not get revenge for their 2009 loss to the Wildcats in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, they will get a chance to repeat against its first round victory from the same year.

UCLA will play Virginia Commonwealth, a team it bested by a single point two seasons ago, in the consolation game of the NIT Tip-Off on Friday at 11:30 a.m. PST.