LOS ANGELES — The UCLA men’s basketball team could not overcome only scoring 23 points in the first half, as the Bruins dropped a 66-57 decision to Cal in Pauley Pavilion Saturday night.
“We don’t have margin for error so if we turn the ball over and get outrebounded, that’s going to limit our chances even more so we have to stop doing those things first of all,” said UCLA assistant basketball coach Rod Palmer, who spoke postgame to reporters in place of Cronin, who he said was still talking to the team more than 15 minutes after the final buzzer sounded. “Coach (Cronin) is trying to put the ball in the peoples’ hands to score, our guys who can score and a lot of times, they think it’s for them to score, when in actuality it’s for them to score if they can but find the open guy if they can’t and that’s the disconnect right there. We just have to stress using each other, sharing the ball with each other and hope that things get better.”
Freshman guard Sebastian Mack scored 18 of his team-high 20 points in the second half. Sophomore forward Adem Bona added 12 of his 14 points in the second half and sophomore guard Dylan Andrews scored 10 points in the first half for the Bruins, who had won 11 straight games against the Golden Bears.
Meanwhile, Palmer said despite the team’s scoring woes, Coach Cronin’s message has remained the same.
“It’s the message that Coach Cronin has always given to the team, you have to play harder if you want a different result,” Palmer said. “You have to do things different if you want a different result and we haven’t been doing those different things. We’ve been stressing it in practice but for some reasons, whatever it is, it could be youth, it could be inexperience, we’re just not getting the job done.”
The Bruins, who were outrebounded by a margin of 39-29, are now 6-9 overall and 1-3 in the Pac-12 conference, which has them tied for last place in league play with California, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State.
“Physicality,” Palmer said. “That’s what it comes down to. Either you’re going to hit someone or you’re going to get hit and we’ve been getting hit a lot. When you get hit a lot it ends up a minus 10 in rebounds, so we have to throw our bodies around, not only our bigs but our guards as well. We need our guards to get in there and get two, three, four, five rebounds and our guards haven’t been doing that. It’s the physicality that we haven’t been playing with and it’s something that we’re going to have to work at and get better at.”
UCLA is on a three-game losing streak and has lost four straight home games, after the team’s 29-game home winning streak ended against Cal State Northridge on Dec. 19.
Junior forward Jaylon Tyson had 17 points of his game-high 22 points in the second half to lead Cal (5-10, 1-3). Senior forward Fardaws Aimaq had 13 points and senior guard Jalen Cone added 12 points for the Golden Bears.
Cal jumped out to a 9-0 lead early. The Bruins missed their first five shots from the field before 7-foot-3 freshman center Aday Mara knocked down a jump shot with 14:46 left in the first half. Mara finished with two points in four minutes. A 3-pointer by Aimaq, a 6-foot-11 forward, put UCLA down 12-2 with 13:12 remaining in the first. The Bruins’ cold shooting continued as they shot 27.8% from the field early (5 of their first 18 shots) and trailed 21-10 with 7:25 remaining before halftime.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin received a technical foul after throwing his suit jacket into the second row while arguing that sophomore guard Will McClendon should not have been called a defensive foul while guarding Cal’s Aimaq in the post with less than a minute to go before halftime.
The Bruins trailed 32-23 at halftime. UCLA’s Andrews who drained a buzzer-beating jump shot to end the first half, had a game-high 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting at halftime. No other Bruin scored more than four points in the first half. UCLA shot 36% in the first half (9 of 25), including 25% from three-point range (1 of 4) and 50% from the free-throw line (4 of 8). The Bruins held Cal to 34.4 shooting from the field in the first half.
Bona scored UCLA’s first four points of the second half, including a monster fast-break dunk, which pulled the Bruins within seven, 36-29 with 18:19 remaining.
However, UCLA would later trail 45-31 with 14:50 to go. The Bruins battled back behind Mack and Bona’s inspired play and cut Cal’s lead to 49-42 with 9:32 to go. A three-pointer by Cal’s Tyson pushed the Golden Bears lead back to 52-42 with 9:01 remaining. A big bucket by UCLA’s Bona cut Cal’s lead to 61-55 with 1:42 to go. However, a three-pointer by Cal senior guard Jalen Cone, pushed the Golden Bears lead back to nine, 64-55 with 1:17 remaining. UCLA’s McClendon made a jumper with 10 seconds to go as the Bruins lost 66-57.
UCLA shot 42.9% from the field (21 of 49), including 20% from three-point range (2 of 10). The Bruins shot 68.4% from the free-throw line (13 of 19).
Meanwhile, Coach Palmer said the team’s rotation, including playing time for the team’s few veteran players, is a work in progress.
“There’s some tinkering for sure,” Palmer explained. “Coach Cronin doesn’t go into the game thinking this guy is going to play this amount of minutes, that guy is going to play a certain amount of minutes. He goes with the guys who are making the least mistakes and the guys who are getting something done offensively, so whatever the minutes are at the end of the game, that’s what the minutes are but he doesn’t have a set amount of minutes that a guy is going to play. In Lazar’s (Stefanovic) case, he made some mistakes, he had a hard guard in trying to guard (Jaylon) Tyson and that didn’t go well to start so we had to try to put somebody else in, who could do the job a little bit better.”
UP NEXT
UCLA will play Utah (11-4, 2-2) on Thursday, Jan. 11 on ESPN2 at 6 p.m.
I’m courtside with UCLA Men’s Basketball ahead of the Bruins Pac-12 game against Cal at Pauley Pavilion. pic.twitter.com/UcjOGdCZCL
— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) January 7, 2024