Kapono Gets Ball and UCLA Gets Win

The UCLA basketball team dusted off a secret weapon Thursday, a player who had flown below the radar for the past month and, at times, felt like a forgotten man.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Kapono.

“Jason’s like a Larry Bird,” teammate Matt Barnes said in the wake of Kapono’s 28-point performance in a 86-76 victory over Washington State at Friel Court. “When Jason gets hot, he’s hands-down unstoppable. He’s been in a slump the last couple of games, and I really put an extra effort in trying to get Jason the ball tonight.”

Barnes wasn’t alone. The rest of the Bruins worked the ball to Kapono too, enabling him to launch 19 shots, one shy of his career high.

The strategy paid off, and the 13th-ranked Bruins improved to 21-7, 14-3 in Pacific 10 Conference play. Along the way, they got quite a scare from the Cougars (12-15, 5-12), who led for much of the game and stayed within striking range until the last three minutes. The sparse crowd of 3,740 kept things lively in the cavernous arena.

It was Kapono who helped UCLA pull away, converting consecutive three-point plays shortly after picking up his fourth foul with 4:52 remaining. Washington State had tied the game at 71 when Kapono got that foul.

“I couldn’t stop shooting and cutting,” said Kapono, who led the Bruins in scoring for the first time since the DePaul game Feb. 10. “I just didn’t want to play tense even though I was getting fouls and stuff like that. I couldn’t worry about that because it was a tie game. I got a couple of good passes and scored on them, and we just built on that.”

It wasn’t a one-man show. All five UCLA starters scored in double figures, Barnes tied a career high with seven assists, and Dan Gadzuric dominated the boards with 13 rebounds.

Gadzuric scored 16 points, followed by Billy Knight (14), Earl Watson (13) and Barnes (11). The downside: Only four points came from the bench.

Washington State was led by Jerry McNair (21 points) and Marcus Moore (19), each of whom made four three-pointers.

When asked about Kapono’s smooth moves, Moore responded with we’re-not-worthy reverence.

“He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever seen without the ball,” he said. “He keeps curling and cutting. He just has faith they’re going to keep getting him the ball.”

And the Bruins did. Kapono was the focus in large part because he has felt so out of the loop the last few weeks. After the loss to Stanford last Saturday, he said he needed more touches, more chances to unleash that effortless shot.

Five days later, he was happy to put those complaints behind him.

“It was both me playing bad and us losing that caused me to say things I shouldn’t have said,” he said. “I just slipped up. But we got past that, and now we just have one game left in the regular season and then we’re on to the [NCAA] tournament.”

From here, the Bruins head to Seattle, where they have not won since the 1996-97 season when Steve Lavin was a rookie coach. None of the current Bruins were on that team.

“These are our last two dress rehearsals before we raise the curtain on the real show, which is the NCAA tournament,” said Lavin, whose team has won nine of 10 games and knocked off Washington State for the 17th consecutive time. “So we need to be playing efficiently on offense and defense and with confidence at this time of the year, so that momentum carries over.”

The way things began Thursday night, the Bruins were neither efficient nor confident. They fell behind early and played catch-up the entire first half, finally knotting the game at 40 when Knight sank a put-back at the buzzer.

Both teams were sloppy in the half, combining for 21 turnovers and seldom working the ball inside for high-percentage shots. Six Bruins had at least one steal, and Knight had two.

At the other end of the court, Watson and Kapono had three turnovers each, mostly on errant passes and traveling calls.

The Cougars, who led by as many as 11 points, were scorching from behind the three-point arc, making six of eight, including three by McNair.

Eventually, Kapono settled into his rhythm and got hot, scoring 11 in the half on five-of-nine shooting.

“I think we may have overlooked this game,” Barnes said. “Everyone’s really hyped for the tournament. Everyone keeps hearing we’ll be a two or three seed. We’ve got to take care of the Pac-10 first.”