DANIEL WONG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff The freshmen on the
men’s basketball team, including Cedric Bozeman,
made major contributions to help UCLA beat Stanford. UCLA
95 Stanford 92
By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
PALO ALTO “”mdash; If the warm-up song, The Steve Miller
Band’s “Come Out and Dance,” was a dare for the
UCLA men’s basketball team, they took it on
whole-heartedly.
Dance, flow, however you want to say it, that’s what the
No. 25 Bruins (18-9, 10-6 Pac-10) did en route to their 95-92
victory over No. 10 Stanford (17-8, 10-6) in front of a sellout
crowd of 7,391 at Maples Pavilion.
It is the third year in a row that UCLA has defeated Stanford on
the Cardinal’s home floor, and though Stanford wasn’t
ranked No. 1 this time around, Saturday’s win was just as
much of a boost for a struggling Bruin squad.
“It’s been an old theme, in terms of our ability in
tough times to come together and rally and make a run,” Bruin
head coach Steve Lavin said. “Hopefully we can continue this
because we haven’t really been playing well. They really
played their hearts out for 40 minutes, and I’m just really
proud of the kids today.”
With starting forward Matt Barnes serving a NCAA-mandated
one-game suspension for fighting in Thursday night’s game at
Cal, the Bruins needed their younger post players, sophomore T.J.
Cummings and freshman Andre Patterson, to step up in a big way. And
they did.
But it wasn’t just those two. It was also the other
underclassmen. Previous opponents had been able to breathe easy
knowing that players such as Cedric Bozeman, Dijon Thompson and
Ryan Walcott were averaging just 3.6, 3.5 and 1.6 points per game,
respectively. But with 11 for Bozeman, 13 from Thompson, and six
free-throws from Walcott down the stretch, the Cardinal ended up
looking flustered for much of the contest.
“We just wanted to have fun and not worry about anything.
We just wanted to display our talent,” Bozeman said.
“As a whole, we’ve been a little tight at
times.”
Thompson agreed. “We just went out there and played
free,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just
going out there and playing. I was just relaxed.”
Stanford began mounting a comeback with five minutes left in the
game. But the Bruins, who have suffered from uninspired play in
several of their recent games, weren’t going to repeat the
pattern.
Credit it to their defensive pressure, with the energy of
Patterson, intensity of Cummings, and the relentless rebounding
from Gadzuric. The Bruins packed it in from the inside, daring the
Cardinal to shoot from the outside and got Stanford to take a
school-record 42 three-point attempts, 14 of which it
converted.
“No one really had confidence shooting today,”
Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery said. “They packed it in
and weren’t going to defend us outside until we proved it to
them.”
Montgomery also cited lack of communication as a problem
plaguing the Cardinal. With 37 seconds left in the first half and
UCLA up by six, Montgomery encouraged his team to use a foul
instead of letting UCLA get another shot off before time
expired.
The Cardinal defense swarmed on the ball-handler and as the
seconds ticked down, Billy Knight found himself with the ball. With
a Cardinal defender very much in his face, Knight released an
improbable-looking shot. With one second to go, Knight’s shot
sank through the net, putting UCLA back up by nine, 49-40, at the
half.
It was more tense, though, in the final minutes of the second
half. With 5:20 left to play, UCLA was up by 20 points at 75-55
after a jumper from Cummings. The Cardinal pressured every Bruins
every pass, every step, every shot. And with 50 seconds left,
Stanford had whittled away UCLA’s lead to just six points, at
89-83 after two free-throws from Casey Jacobsen.
But it was free-throws, too, that kept UCLA ahead at the end.
Walcott, Knight and Thompson went 10-for-12 in the final two
minutes of the game. Thompson returned to the game after suffering
an injury to his left knee midway through the second half.
The Bruins flowed much better offensively than they have in
recent games, shooting 58 percent overall and 70 percent from
beyond the arc. Kapono made his impact with 22 points, going
8-for-12 from the field. Gadzuric continued his steady production
with 12 points, 15 rebounds and three blocked shots.