The UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team ended the long regular season schedule with an impressive 90-63 blowout victory over the cross-town rival USC Trojans before 12,018 raucous fans at Pauley Pavilion in Westwood last Saturday. The victory gave the Bruins a 22-9 overall record for the season and clinched a 4th place finish in the 18-team Big Ten conference standings and a double bye in the upcoming Big Ten post-season tournament.
UCLA head coach Mick Cronin had the Bruins ready to play from the tip-off, with the Bruins jumping to a quick 6-0 lead and never looking back, stretching the lead to 36 points in the second half. The Bruins shot 61.7% from the field and 45.5% from the three-point line and held the Trojans to 42.9% from the floor and forced 20 turnovers, leading to a 37-16 advantage in points off of turnovers for the Bruins.
Forward Eric Dailey, Jr. led the Bruins with 25 points on 10 of 13 shooting from the field, including 4 of 5 three-point attempts. Guard Skyy Clark added 17 points and six assists. Both Dailey and Clark had three steals each. Center Aday Mara had 14 points in just 14 minutes, adding two assists, and two blocked shots.
“We knew it was a big game, obviously a rivalry game,” Clark said after the game. “We wanted to win, and we knew that if we won, we’d get the double-bye. And also, it was senior night. It was a combination of the double-bye, rivalry game, the fans, senior night, all of it together. I think that energy just fed us for the entire game.”
USC was led by guard Wesley Yates with 21 points and guard Desmond Claude with 15 points. The Trojans finished the regular season with a 15-16 overall record. Despite the loss, the Trojans qualified for the postseason Big Ten tournament and will play Rutgers in Indianapolis on Wednesday evening. USC beat Rutgers 97-89 in double overtime to advance to the next round against Purdue on Thursday, March 13. That game will be televised on the Big Ten Network and will start at about 6:00 pm.
Forward Tyler Bilodeau, the Bruins leading scorer at 14 points per game, had 12 points in this game. Bilodeau was named a third-team All-Big Ten selection by the Big Ten coaches. Bilodeau has a very good first step on offense, similar to former UCLA star Kiki Vandeweghe. He consistently used it to get around the Trojans defenders.
UCLA guard Kobe Johnson was named to the five-man Big Ten All-Defensive team. Johnson was named to the All-Pac-12 Defensive team twice while at USC. He transferred from USC last spring with the departure of former Trojan head coach Andy Enfield. Johnson leads the Bruins in rebounds at six per game and in steals at 1.6 per game.
“I thought we played with tremendous conviction to our game plan,” Cronin said at his postgame press conference. “I thought our focus was unbelievable. Defensively, we made it extremely hard on them. We took away the things that they are the best at, which is going down the lane – Yates down the lane, Claude down the lane.”
The Bruins have won 11 of their last 14 games and finally seem to have some consistency on both sides of the ball. “The most productive guys on this team have been Eric, Tyler, Kobe defensively, and Skyy, Cronin said. “They’re all transfers, so it’s taken some time. But if we have good guard play, we have a chance. We have a real chance.”
“I feel like we have good momentum going into the tournament,” Dailey said. “Tonight, five guys were in double figures, and we had great defensive plays and deflections. We had a lot of movement, and it looks like we hit a lot of shots tonight. This is the basketball that we know we can play, and we need to keep playing this brand of basketball through the tournament.”
The double-bye will give the Bruins some much-needed time off before they play again on Friday, March 14 in Indianapolis. The Bruins will play at 11:30 AM against an opponent to be determined in the first two rounds of the Big Ten tournament. The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network.
With the double-bye, the Bruins just need to win three times to win the Big Ten Tournament and win the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Winning the Big Ten tournament will improve the Bruins seeding in the NCAA tournament. Even with a loss, the Bruins have a Net Ranking of 24 and will easily qualify for the NCAA tournament.