Men’s basketball begins conference play with 20-point victory over California

This post was last updated Dec. 6 at 11:58 p.m.

Just over a week ago against Pepperdine, it took UCLA three overtime periods to build a winning lead over the Waves. 

The Bruins’ matchup with the visiting Seattle Redhawks on Thursday was not as dramatic, yet it still took UCLA until the end of the first half to build a lead. 

Neither of those two scenarios were true Sunday night. In its second home game of the season in a largely empty Pauley Pavilion, UCLA men’s basketball (3-1, 1-0 Pac-12) jumped to a double-digit lead against California (2-3, 0-2 Pac-12), taking down its Bay Area rival 76-56 for its first conference win of the new campaign.  

The Bruins and Golden Bears traded baskets for the opening three minutes of regulation, but after a 3-pointer from senior guard Chris Smith, it was all Bruins for the rest of the half as Smith accounted for eight of UCLA’s 12 opening points. 

“A big point of emphasis today was to not come out and start slow like we’ve been doing in the first three games,” Smith said. “We were out there a lot of times in the first games just unsure of what to do when we got the ball. The clock would be ticking down, and we wouldn’t have enough time to get off the shot we wanted. So, a big emphasis today was spacing and just making sure that you made the easy play.”

However, the senior’s hot start on offense wasn’t self-contained. Overall, UCLA hit all seven of its first attempts from the field, pushing its lead over California to seven points by the 14-minute mark in the first half. 

The Bruins’ perfect streak from the floor ended on a missed 3-pointer from sophomore guard Jaime Jaquez Jr., but the team’s hot shooting continued until the halftime buzzer. 

The Bruins’ shooting was aided by redshirt sophomore guard Tyger Campbell’s six first-half assists. Campbell would go on to double that assist total by the end of the game, earning his third-career double-double as a Bruin with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting. 

“We’re just trying to come together more as a team and play hard every possession,” Campbell said.  “No possessions off. We knew in our first two games this season, we didn’t really have good spacing. So we just came back, watched film, and we just got better from it.” 

Campbell’s passing ensured points came from everyone on the floor, with sophomore guard Jake Kyman and redshirt junior forward Cody Riley contributing four points apiece. Jaquez scored six of his own, while junior guard David Singleton was a perfect 3-3 – along with Smith – from 3-point range in the first half. 

“I thought (Campbell) had a flawless game today,” Smith said. “When you can depend on someone who is as dominant on the ball as (he is) to make the right decision every time he has it, it just makes everyone else around him a lot better.”

UCLA shot 6-of-8 from the 3-point line in the first 20 minutes, a contrast to its long-range shooting in its first three contests. The Bruins came into Sunday’s matchup shooting 33% from deep, with their lowest mark coming in the extended game against the Waves in which the Bruins shot 29%. 

UCLA matched its opening-half offensive execution on the defensive end by limiting Cal to 22 first-half points. From the 12-minute mark, the Bears were unable to score for the next six minutes, and combined with the Bruins’ hot shooting, the UCLA lead swelled to 20 with more than six minutes left to play.

Even when the Bears managed to stay in front of the ball, the Bruins were still able to spot up shots off the dribble, knocking down midrange jumpers from both wings. UCLA shot 70% overall from the floor in the first half and headed into the locker room with an 18-point lead, having led by as many as 21. 

“You know, the most irrelevant stat on the stat sheet is the halftime score,” said coach Mick Cronin. “(Quitting) never entered our minds, so we just tried to focus on adjustments and some things we could do a little bit better.”

The 15-minute halftime brought the Bruins a bit closer to Earth, and offensively, UCLA looked more like its usual self. The Bruins cooled to a tune of 52% from the floor and didn’t hit another 3-pointer until Jaquez swished consecutive 3s at the 4:12 and 3:09 marks. 

“I was really happy that we didn’t get tight offensively,” Cronin said. “To be a real team, you know, you’ve got to be able to keep pace with another team when they’re putting the ball in the basket, and we showed poise offensively.”

For much of the second half, the Bruins opted instead to feed the ball down low as redshirt junior forward/center Jalen Hill knocked down four of his five second-period shots after shooting 0-for-1 in the first. 

Despite a Bruin offense that regressed toward its mean, UCLA managed to hold Cal at bay, never letting its lead shrink to fewer than 12 points. 

At the final buzzer, Smith had notched a team-best 21 points – his second-highest scoring total of the season. 

UCLA will continue its four-game homestand with a matchup against San Diego on Wednesday.