This post was updated Jan. 16 at 11:08 p.m.

Pauley Pavilion, for most of the game, stood silent.

“They didn’t have much to get into,” said coach Mick Cronin. “I think the crowd was moaning as we kept missing open shots. So was I.”

Through the first 29 minutes of the game, the Bruins had nearly as many turnovers as points, had yet to make a shot from beyond the arc and trailed by nine.

But UCLA’s home arena quickly shifted from dead to deafening, as a 17-0 run in less than four minutes erased its poor start and earned the blue and gold a lead it wouldn’t lose for the remainder of the game.

No. 7 UCLA men’s basketball (16-2, 7-0 Pac-12) outscored Colorado by 23 points in the final 10 minutes to win 68-54 and earn their 13th straight victory. The Bruins held the Buffaloes to one made field goal in the final 10 minutes and finished the game with 15 steals and 11 blocks – both season highs for the blue and gold.

“Teams that only defend when the ball goes in are in the NIT,” Cronin said. “Real programs win when things aren’t going their way. They find a way to make it go their way.”

Both teams had more turnovers than made shots through the first 30 minutes. But, while Colorado’s turnover woes continued for the remainder of the game, the blue and gold’s offense erupted in the final 10 minutes.

Starting at the 10:03 mark in the second half with his team trailing 44-35, freshman forward Adem Bona scored five straight points before junior guard Jaylen Clark ended a 0-of-15 start from beyond the arc with a 3-pointer to cut the lead to one.

Clark said the crowd’s increasing energy motivated him to shoot the drought-ending deep jumper.

“It was just like mad loud, and everybody was jumping and screaming,” Clark said. “So I was just like, ‘F it, I’m finna pull it.'”

That was just the beginning of a massive second-half run.

After a pair of free throws gave UCLA the lead, senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. hit another 3-pointer and hit another jumper two possessions later to complete the 17-0 stretch for the Bruins and grab a 52-44 lead with six minutes to go.

From that point on, it was all Bruins, as UCLA would win by 14 points despite trailing for much of the game.

But the Bruins’ early deficit was because of their defensive performance.

UCLA held Utah to a season-low 49 points on Thursday, and the Bruins defense picked up from where it left off Saturday night.

The blue and gold forced 10 first-half Colorado turnovers and held the Buffaloes to 32.1% shooting from the field through the first 20 minutes. The Bruins tallied six steals and six blocks – including three blocks and a steal from Jaquez. Jaquez finished with five blocks, four steals and a career-high 17 deflections.

“We feed off each other’s energy,” Bona said. “If Jaime gets a block, I get hype. I want to run down quicker, I want to get to the paint, get my man behind me. I get a block, Jaime’s sprinting the floor – it’s a chemistry.”

But UCLA’s half-court offense didn’t have similar success in the first half, scoring fewer than 30 points in the opening 20 minutes.

However, as they did in the first half, Colorado’s turnovers kept UCLA in it despite its own offensive failures as the two teams emerged from the halftime locker room.

The Bruins began the half by making just one of their first 17 shot attempts to fall to 12-of-45 shooting from the field through the opening 27 minutes of the contest.

“I just remember saying in the huddle that eventually, they’re going to fall,” Jaquez said. “I knew that we were going to be fine as long as we stopped them from scoring when we weren’t scoring.”

Despite shooting 5.9% from the field and adding a pair of turnovers through the first seven minutes of the second half, UCLA never fell behind by double digits in large part because of 18 turnovers by the Buffaloes through the same second half stretch.

Then the Bruins took over in the final 10 minutes and didn’t look back.

Jaquez led the way with 23 points and 13 rebounds to go along with his career-best deflection night. Clark chipped in 18 points, redshirt senior guard Tyger Campbell 11, and Bona nine to go along with three blocks of his own.

The Bruins are now 16-0 when they hold opponents to fewer than 70 points. Cronin said his team is comfortable playing in ugly games.

“My 81-year-old father is here today. He used to tell me, … ‘At a dance contest, you got to be able to dance to every song they play,’” Cronin said. “It ain’t the tango every night – you got to be able to win in different ways against different styles.”