JESSE PORTER/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Ray
Young plows over CSUN’s Jeff Parris as he
pulls up for a shot in the first half of UCLA’s disappointing 78-74
loss to Northridge Tuesday night at Pauley Pavilion. Cal
State Northridge 78 UCLA 74
By Chris Umpierre
Daily Bruin Staff
Steve Lavin saw this one coming.
After warning his team all week about this veteran Cal State
Northridge squad, saying they reminded him of last year’s
Gonzaga team and going as far as to say they had the potential to
make a Sweet Sixteen run, the Matadors went out and proved the
Bruin coach right.
Behind an assortment of zone defenses that perplexed UCLA all
night, Northridge (2-0) spoiled the Bruins’ home opener by
stunning the No. 14 Bruins (1-2) 78-74 in front of 6,448 on Tuesday
night at Pauley Pavilion.
It was the first time CSUN, which has lived in the shadows of
the Westwood program for decades, has ever beat UCLA.
“We are trying to make this into a program so that in the
future we have respectability,” said CSUN guard Markus
Carr.
“It’s a good win for our program, but I’m not
going to rank it No. 1 in school history,” he added.
“We still have a big goal we are trying to achieve, which is
a (Big Sky Conference) championship.”
Credit Northridge’s defense for this upset. After going
into the half down 39-32, CSUN slowed the game down and made UCLA
play halfcourt.
CSUN head coach Bobby Braswell constantly switched from a
two-three zone defense to a one-two-two zone defense to a
man-to-man defense, confusing UCLA.
The Matadors held UCLA to just 39 percent (12 of 31) from the
field in the second half.
“They gave us different looks defensively,” Lavin
said. “We have to do a better job of keeping our poise and
making better decisions.”
More importantly, they held UCLA’s leading scorer and
preseason Wooden Award candidate Jason Kapono to just 6 points.
“They did a good job of shading him, making sure they had
a collective awareness of where he was at all times,” Lavin
said.
“He also got some wide-open looks and just didn’t
make shots tonight,” he continued.
Lavin made a point of telling his team that this veteran CSUN
team, which was picked to win the Big Sky Conference, constantly
mixes defenses in hopes of confusing the opponent.
“We knew what they were going to do, but when it actually
happened, we weren’t really prepared for it,” said
forward Matt Barnes. “They really caught us off-guard by
switching up defenses so much.”
Carr said defense is something his team takes pride in.
“They say offense wins games, but defense wins
championships,” he said. “We’re going to come in
every night and play some hard defense. Even if the ball is not
dropping, calls not going our way, we are still going to play hard
defense.”
It was this defense that held UCLA scoreless for more than six
minutes at the start of the second half. With the Bruins stuck at
43 points, Northridge went on a 13-0 run to take a 51-43 lead.
UCLA was able to cut the Northridge lead to 62-60 at the
three-minute mark, but CSUN center Brian Heinle scored the next
five points ““ including a thunderous jam on a backdoor play,
giving the Matadors a lead they would not relinquish.
While Northridge was playing tough defense, UCLA often left
players open on the perimeter or allowed players to drive
uncontested to the basket.
Poor transition and halfcourt defense has plagued UCLA
throughout its first three games. In its prior two games, UCLA gave
up 95.5 points per game.
Bruin senior point guard Earl Watson, who had 15 points, six
assists and seven turnovers, said his team has a long way to go to
improve.
“We’re not as good as we think we are,” he
said. “You have to go out every game and play with 100
percent. If your shots aren’t going down, you have to go 110
percent on defense. We didn’t do that.”
Kapono knew before the game that it would be a dog fight.
“We knew they were going to come into Pauley
hungry,” he said. “We knew what we were up for, but we
didn’t meet that challenge tonight.”