Bruins Look Like Hotshots

When Pauley Pavilion fans are chanting Michael Fey’s name late in the first half, when Brian Morrison blocks the shot of USC freshman star Gabe Pruitt and dunks twice, once nearly sending himself through the hoop, things are going spectacularly well for the UCLA Bruins.

In front of 12,823, the biggest Pauley Pavilion crowd of the year Thursday night, UCLA walloped USC, 90-69, and swept the season series against its cross-town rival for the first time in four years.

Combined with Stanford’s loss to Oregon State, the Bruins (15-9, 9-7) are a half-game behind the third-place Cardinal. The Trojans (11-16, 4-12) still have a chance to make the eight-team Pacific 10 Conference tournament. But only if they find in themselves some reason to play defense.

While four Bruins scored in double figures, while the team shot a season-high 60.7% from the field and handed off a season-high 22 assists on their 34 baskets, it was freshman guard Arron Afflalo who was the singular standout.

After saying he was disappointed in his offensive performance over the last month, Afflalo came up with a career-high 22 points. More pleasing to Coach Ben Howland was a second career high -- nine rebounds. And Afflalo was the primary defender on Pruitt, who had been averaging over 13 points a game in conference play but scored only 10.

“Arron had a great game,” Howland said, “especially defensively. We put him on Pruitt and I thought he did a fabulous job.”

But it was three Morrison plays that were repeated on the highlight screen of the Pauley scoreboard after the game.

Twice in the second half the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Morrison, who had 14 points, dunked the ball and once he reached almost as high as the rim to block a layup attempt from the 6-foot-4 Pruitt.

“I didn’t think Brian could dunk twice in a half,” Howland said.

UCLA center Fey (15 points, eight rebounds) played against Morrison in high school. “Nothing Brian does surprises me,” Fey said. But it surprised everybody else in Pauley.

After building a 49-33 halftime lead, the Bruins kept pushing forward. They led by as many as 32 points (78-46) and senior Dijon Thompson -- who had 17 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals -- said he felt as if the Trojans quit playing hard on defense.

“Yeah, a little,” Thompson said. “I don’t remember the exact point, but we were getting layup after layup after layup.”

Afflalo agreed.

“When you’re dunking like that, it’s obvious the other team has lost something,” Afflalo said. “As a player who’s been around the game 14 years you can tell. The other team is still playing, but are they really competing?”

Pruitt agreed.

“We just gave up defensively,” Pruitt said. “We didn’t play hard like we normally do.”

The game was close until the final six minutes of the first half. A Gregg Guenther layup for USC with 5:30 made the score 35-30 in favor of UCLA.

Guenther caused a commotion 21 seconds later when he took Josh Shipp to the floor. Shipp made the two foul shots and scored on the ensuing possession too.

UCLA’s 49 first-half points were a season high. So was its 21-point margin of victory.

“UCLA just came out and outplayed us in every phase of the game,” interim Trojan Coach Jim Saia said. “This was our worst performance of the year. Unfortunately it came at Pauley Pavilion.”

Howland considered this one of UCLA’s best games of the year. “We really shared the ball well,” he said, “starting with Dijon. I feel real good about the way we played.”

But a week ago Howland felt the same when the Bruins had a decisive victory at California. They followed that with a sluggish loss to Stanford last Sunday.

This Sunday the Bruins travel to Notre Dame in a key game that could affect both team’s NCAA tournament at-large bid chances.

“That’s the key for us,” Thompson said. “We have to follow this up. We have to go out and have fun.”

There doesn’t seem much fun to find for the Trojans, who have a week off.

“I feel for them,” Howland said, “for what they’ve gone through this year. I was really worried about this game.”

No need for that, it turned out.