This post was updated Dec. 14 at 12:12 a.m.

SEATTLE – Some teams are hammers, and some are nails.

And in the history of UCLA vs. Gonzaga, the Bulldogs have consistently shown who wields the power and who takes the hit.

But Saturday night, Graham Ike and Braden Huff showed up with a sledgehammer.

Powered by 46 combined points on a 57.1% field goal percentage from the frontcourt tandem, No. 8 Gonzaga (10-1) won the battle of the bigs 82-72 over No. 25 UCLA men’s basketball (7-3, 2-0 Big Ten) at Climate Pledge Arena. With the defeat, the Bruins fall to 0-2 against ranked teams this season.

“It’s my 23rd year, won a lot of games. It’s because you play smart on defense. Make them beat you without their strength,” said coach Mick Cronin. “It’s just basic basketball. We’re really struggling, we got good kids and we’re trying. We just have to play smarter. This would have been an unbelievable win in this environment.”

UCLA’s late rotations and switches left mismatches and open looks that allowed Huff and Ike to dominate the interior, leading their team to outscore the Bruins in the paint and win the rebounding battle.

And Gonzaga’s inefficient 27.3% first-half 3-point clip meant the Bulldogs only attacked the paint harder and more often.

“We knew coming into this game that they wanted to score a lot of points in the paint,” said senior guard Donovan Dent. “We know they lead the country in it, and we preached on it all week in practice, and we just didn’t come out and do our job in guarding the paint tonight.” 

Junior forward/center Xavier Booker started the game against Ike but quickly switched defensive assignments with senior forward Tyler Bilodeau, who had been facing Huff. But the switch proved to be ineffective, as neither UCLA frontcourt option was able to stymie Gonzaga’s leading duo, who finished the night with 25 and 21 points, respectively.

“Defense beat us. Defense beat us. We shot 50% from three and the field,” Cronin said. “We struggle at times to realize Tyler needs to get the ball in the post. They had (guard Jalen) Warley on him, who’s 6’5”. Again, we don’t play smart at times. Like, how do you not know that? That’s where we struggle at times – intelligence.”

In fact, Warley is listed as six-foot-seven.

Even redshirt senior forward/center Steven Jamerson II – a more physically imposing big man whom Cronin tabbed as making leaps and bounds in terms of progress and game impact – was unable to make a visible difference in the Bruins’ defensive half-court.

But basketball is a game of runs, and the Bruins did not back down easily.

UCLA retook the lead with as little as 11:04 remaining in the game, largely thanks to Bilodeau and Dent, who garnered a double-double off 12 points and 10 assists while also adding three blocks and two steals on the defensive end.

Despite Dent’s effort, Cronin was disappointed by the guard’s turnovers.

“He’s got 12 points, 10 assists. I’m down on his turnovers because those kill in a game like this,” Cronin said. “You can’t just throw it away, and they lay it in. He’s too good for that.”

And while Bilodeau may not have been able to mitigate Huff and Ike’s offensive impact, the Kennewick, Washington, local may have been the only reason the Bruins were able to keep the game close.

The team’s leading scorer garnered 24 points, including four 3-pointers, all of which ate into a mounting Gonzaga lead. 

But the Bruins were unable to defend the Bulldogs, primarily their frontcourt, without fouling – a key point of focus Cronin cited for his squad.

“We knew it was going to be a game of runs. Every tough game is going to be like that, so we just have to stay together, keeping our confidence and keep fighting,” Bilodeau said.

The Bulldogs took 16 more second-half free throws than the Bruins and converted 10 more, preventing the latter from completing late-game heroics.

“We got to do a better job listening, like I said earlier, scouting report, and then two, just not making dumb fouls,” Bilodeau said. “I had a dumb one during the half, but you know we got to minimize those mistakes.”

Other than failing to mitigate fouls, the Bruins also struggled to adjust to the Bulldogs’ changing defenses, ultimately allowing them to pull away with the victory.

Gonzaga alternated between man and zone defense after UCLA pulled back into the game, forcing the latter to adjust on the fly.

“I think it slowed us down a good amount. There’s like a three-minute stretch where they switched to that zone,” Dent said. “I think that’s kind of when the game separated a little bit. They did a good job switching up, and we weren’t quite ready for their zone, so that’s on us.”

Outside of Huff and Ike, there was little contribution from the Bulldog supporting cast. Starters guard Steele Venters and forward Emmanuel Innocenti combined for just one point. 

However, guard Mario Saint-Supery was able to take advantage of UCLA’s defensive lapses in spurts, utilizing his speed to contrast the Gonzaga big men, adding 12 points, including a huge 3-pointer that extended the Bulldogs’ late lead to six with 7:27 remaining.

Gonzaga held its lead for the remaining 10:37 of the game, aided by UCLA’s 43.3% second-half field goal percentage.

UCLA will next play against Arizona State on Wednesday.