Bruins Steal Their Way Back On Top Pac-10

It’s hard to score if you giving the other team the ball. Cal players probably knew that already but now the lesson has been reinforced.

UCLA got 16 steals (and Cal had 21 turnovers overall), which fueled a lot of easy baskets as the Bruins cruised to an 81-66 win in a key Pac-10 game at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday night.

The UCLA win, combined with Arizona upsetting Washington, has the Bruins back tied for the conference lead at 6-2.

The game was close for most of the first half, in large because the Bears are the best three-point shooting team in the nation and they lived up to that reputation. Cal hit 60% of their shots from beyond the arc on the night (besting their already-impressive season average of 47%).

But the Bears were not getting as many of those three-point shots as they wanted because they got flustered by the pressure defense of UCLA. Things really came apart for Cal with about five minutes left in the first half, when they turned the ball over on five consecutive possessions. That resulted in eight fast break points for the Bruins who stretched their lead out to 10 quickly.

It was all but over after UCLA started the second half on a 20-7 run that included key three pointers from Josh Shipp and Nikola Dragovic.

Ben Howland’s team got balanced scoring from its starters — four of the five finished in double digits. As is usually the case with the Bruins, the guards led the way, with Darren Collison scoring 18 and Jrue Holiday added 13 to lead the Bruins. Michael Roll came off the bench to score 10 for UCLA.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us