CATHERINE JAYIN JUN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Freshman
Ryan Walcott forces a shot amidst a sea of Ducks
in UCLA’s 65-62 loss on Saturday. Oregon 65 UCLA
62
By Christina Teller
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Going out with a win is what they wanted. Not just for their
record, or a seed in the Pac-10 tournament. The seniors wanted it
for memory’s sake.
But after the cheering and hugging and silent tears, the Bruin
seniors and the rest of the squad finished regular season play with
a 65-62 loss to No. 13 Oregon in front of 11,680 at Pauley
Pavilion. The win gave Oregon its first Pac-10 title in 63 years.
The loss gave UCLA a regular season sixth-place finish in the
conference, the school’s worst ever.
“It just wraps up our career here, win one lose
one,” senior captain Rico Hines said. “You can’t
come back. In other years I’ve always said, “˜next year
man, we’ll get it next year; we’re not going to go out
like that.’ It’s (the up and down trend) the tale of
our whole career.”
But it’s not to say that the Bruins (19-10, 11-7 Pac-10)
didn’t do well on Saturday. They held the Ducks (22-7, 14-4)
to just a 32 percent clip from beyond the arc and just 41 percent
overall. This compared to the 56.7 percent overall and 45 percent
success rate the Ducks rained on UCLA in Eugene just over a month
ago.
But for the four seniors ““ Hines, Billy Knight, Matt
Barnes and Dan Gadzuric ““ this improvement in play is of
little consolation.
“We played hard, but we didn’t win,” Hines
said. “I’m not into moral victories.”
And from this point on, the one-loss-and-you’re-out
tournament format is not going to be forgiving of the Bruins’
up and down style of play.
Looking beyond the disappointment looming in the Bruins’
locker room is the fact that UCLA has improved in several aspects
of the game. A smaller, quicker team has been the Bruins’
Achilles heel throughout the season, and Oregon is just that kind
of team.
The Ducks’ quick ball movement and fluid transition game
was the Bruins’ undoing in Eugene, but Saturday was
different. The Bruins were able to take the Ducks out of their
rhythm both by playing better transition defense as well as packing
the paint with defenders in the half-court game.
“We wanted to pack it in and take the inside away,”
Knight said, “but they had a whole bunch of threes. When they
get their offense going, they shoot a lot of threes in transition,
so we just wanted to stop the inside game.”
And what continues to be essential for UCLA is imposing play
from Gadzuric. From the beginning Gadzuric was a factor, ripping
down rebounds and muscling his way to the bucket. He finished with
a team-high 22 points and 11 rebounds, recording his eighth
double-double of the season.
But without prolific scoring from another Bruin,
Gadzuric’s performance wasn’t enough for a win. The
Ducks quieted Jason Kapono and Billy Knight again, with the two
combining for just 11 points.
“If we would have won, I would feel in a way good but not
satisfied,” Gadzuric said. “I gave all I got today, but
personally I’m never satisfied because I want to get better
every day.”
Oregon gained the lead five minutes in and led by at least four
points from that point on. The Bruins explained their flat start
with the emotion surrounding Senior Day. But with just under eight
minutes left in the game, Ryan Walcott hit a wide-open three to put
the Bruins up 49-48.
Lavin had let his young lineup of Walcott, Dijon Thompson, Andre
Patterson, T.J. Cummings and Cedric Bozeman run the floor for a
good eight minutes. But once UCLA had made the game close, the
veterans returned with six minutes left in the game.
It was the seniors’ game to win, and with 48 seconds left
and the Bruins trailing by two, Gadzuric went to the line. He made
the second of two free-throws, bringing UCLA within one at
63-62.
Freddie Jones, who led Oregon with 22 points, made a layup in
traffic on Oregon’s final possession, putting the game just
out of reach.
The loss puts UCLA at 1-1 for the eighth week in a row. But as
it turns out, though, the Bruins did catch a break in losing to
Oregon. The loss pits UCLA against Cal in the first round of the
Pac-10 tournament. A matchup with Cal, despite the Bruins’
loss to them just a week ago, is much more manageable than a
rematch against either USC, Stanford or Arizona.