Hoyas Bring Out the Beast in the Bruins

Pauley Pavilion became a proving ground. At times the floor resembled the set of “Ali.”

Testosterone Tech, also known as Georgetown, sauntered in Saturday with teeth clenched and elbows flying. Three Big East officials came along too, and their primary purpose appeared to be allowing contact without the interruption of whistles.

This was an invasion of the body smackers, and UCLA braced for a brawl game.

But as surely as Hoya Coach Craig Esherick is a dead ringer for actor Dabney Coleman, it was the Bruins who had the look of fighters. They landed the early blows, piled up points, absorbed counter-punches and delivered the knockout, winning, 98-91, before a national television audience and a boisterous crowd of 10,423, easily the largest at home this season.

The fans showed up feisty and so did the Bruins (9-2), who have won seven in a row.

“A lot of people say the West Coast is soft,” forward T.J. Cummings said. “We wanted to send a message to the rest of the country that we can be physical and go blow for blow with anybody.”

UCLA certainly illustrated the ability to bang with the beasts from the Big East. Post players Cummings, Dan Gadzuric and Matt Barnes scored 18, 18 and 19 points, respectively, held 6-foot-11 Georgetown center Wesley Wilson scoreless and forced the Hoyas to launch 28 three-point shots.

The No. 15 Bruins not only played tough, they played smart, displaying sound ball movement and shot-clock management. They had 18 assists to only eight by No. 20 Georgetown (9-3).

And when a 20-point halftime lead was whittled to four because the Hoyas sank six three-point baskets in the last 1:32, the Bruins calmly made the crisp passes and free throws necessary to hold on.

“We came out and played harder today,” said Barnes, who had seven assists and seven rebounds. “We really shared the ball a lot. It was fun to watch. It’s tough to beat us when five guys have more than 15 points.”

Guard Billy Knight scored 20, making four three-pointers, and point guard Jason Kapono scored 16, including three from long range. UCLA made 11 of 18 from three-point range, including a career-high three by Barnes.

Kapono, the team’s leading scorer, had his worst game, turning the ball over seven times and making only four of 12 shots and five of 10 free throws, yet this was the first time UCLA reached 90 points.

“It’s good to see we can get as many guys into the offense as we did,” Kapono said. “It was a physical game, they pressed almost the whole time and I couldn’t get a shooting rhythm. It was real tiring out there. But we had a lot of weapons.”

They were all firing early. UCLA jumped to a 31-10 lead with Barnes and Gadzuric seizing control in the paint. Georgetown scored 12 in a row, but UCLA responded with another run to close out the half ahead, 55-35.

The Hoyas made a concerted effort to get to ball to 6-8, 260-pound forward Mike Sweetney in the second half, and he made four of four shots.

“We came out not playing hard and I don’t know why,” said Sweetney, who fouled out with 5:13 to play. “We saw that we were down, and we wanted to just fight back. Our hearts and pride were hurt.”

UCLA’s 52% shooting did much of the damage. When Georgetown crept to within 15, Kapono made back-to-back three-pointers and the score was 73-51 with 11 minutes to play.

The rout never materialized, though. The flurry of late Hoya three-pointers--three each by Kevin Braswell and Tony Bethel--made the score 95-91 with 12.4 seconds left. But a free throw by Knight was followed by a blocked shot by Barnes and a layup at the buzzer by Cummings.

“Georgetown clearly made us earn the win,” UCLA Coach Steve Lavin said. “Our game plan was to take away the paint and control the boards. We were able to do it successfully in the first half, then again late.”

Defeating two very different nonconference opponents in the last three days bodes well for UCLA when Pacific 10 play resumes Friday against Washington.

“Columbia was one style, a smart, grinder team from the Ivy League,” Lavin said. “Then to come back and play a high-flying game against a very physical, aggressive team and play this well is encouraging.”

Of course, nearly blowing leads of more than 20 points to both opponents bodes less well.

“When we build big leads, we seem to go off on our own island,” Barnes said. “It’s something we have to work on.”

For the moment, the Bruins preferred to focus on their second victory over a ranked opponent in as many tries.

“They put such tremendous ball pressure on us and we had stretches where we had great spacing and ball movement,” Lavin said. “We are still a work in progress, but we could become a pretty good basketball team.”

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December’s Children

The Bruins went 7-0 in December, improving their record to 9-2 and 2-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference. A look at this month’s games:

Dec. 5 at Pauley Pavilion Record

UCLA 65, UC Riverside 50 3-2

Dec. 8 at the Arrowhead Pond

UCLA 79, Alabama 57* 4-2

Dec. 15 at Pauley Pavilion

UCLA 75, UC Irvine 74 5-2

Dec. 20 at Washington

UCLA 85, Washington 79 6-2, 1-0

Dec. 22 at Washington State

UCLA 79, Washington St. 74 7-2, 2-0

Dec. 27 at Pauley Pavilion

UCLA 64, Columbia 55 8-2, 2-0

Dec. 29 at Pauley Pavilion

UCLA 98, Georgetown 91 9-2, 2-0

*-Wooden Classic