Bruins Get Picked Clean

Jordan Farmar had the ball. Then Farmar didn’t.

With the Pauley Pavilion crowd in full roar and UCLA’s comeback from a 20-point second-half deficit to West Virginia nearly complete, Farmar had the ball in his hands and his eyes set on a quick dash to take a three-point shot.

If Farmar made it, with the final seconds ticking away, the score would be tied, overtime would come and UCLA would ride the momentum to a nationally televised victory.

Until Mike Gansey took the ball away.

“Best steal I’ve ever had and best steal I’ll probably ever have,” said Gansey, the West Virginia guard.

“It was clean,” Farmar said. “He didn’t touch me. My bad.”

The 12th-ranked Mountaineers celebrated a 60-56 win over the 18th-ranked Bruins with a big sigh of relief Saturday. After they had led, 47-27, with 15 minutes 19 seconds left, the Mountaineers (14-3) had a 59-56 lead with seven seconds remaining and Farmar dribbling the ball. But he hadn’t counted on the quick hands of Gansey.

“I just swiped at the ball,” said Gansey, who had a game-high 24 points on seven-for-eight shooting. “I swiped and I got the ball. Jordan looked at me and he knew it was clean. I feel great.”

Farmar fouled Gansey, who made one of two free throws and then dived into the arms of his welcoming teammates.

West Virginia, which has won 12 in a row, had used a well-spaced, well-executed 1-3-1 zone defense to discombobulate the Bruin offense and a patient, precise passing offense to earn plenty of open three-point shots and back-door layups.

“We came out to start very, very tentative,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said. “The way West Virginia plays, it really forces you to test your fundamentals. I was pleased with our comeback, but it’s a difficult team to play against.”

The Bruins (15-4) have lost three games to top-15 teams -- Memphis, Washington and West Virginia -- and all three times they have forgotten to play a half. Last week against the Huskies, it was a second-half collapse that did in UCLA. Against Memphis and West Virginia, bad first halves were the problem.

“We can keep saying we’re a young team,” UCLA’s sophomore guard Arron Afflalo said, “but at some point that excuse gets old. If we put two good halves defensively together, that’s not going to be a problem.”

UCLA wasted a career-high 13 rebounds from freshman Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and an active defensive effort from senior backup center Ryan Hollins, who kept West Virginia’s 6-foot-11, three-point shooter Kevin Pittsnogle in check. Pittsnogle finished with eight points, 12 below his average, and made four of 15 shots. Hollins also had 11 points and eight rebounds and earned praise from Howland for his “focus and effort.”

But Afflalo, who is averaging 18.3 points, had a season-low four on one-for-nine shooting (0 for 6 from three-point range). He missed a wide-open three-point attempt with about 1:30 left that would have tied the score, and Farmar, who finished with 22 points, missed an in-rhythm three-pointer about 20 seconds later. “I thought that was in,” Farmar said.

“It looked like it was in,” Howland said.

The Bruins led early, 7-2, but West Virginia went ahead, 10-9, with 15:18 left in the first half and never trailed again. The Mountaineers are the second-best three-point shooting team in the country, and at halftime they had made 50% of their long-distance shots (six of 12) and 57% of all their attempts. They led, 39-22, even though Pittsnogle had two points.

“If you had told me Pittsnogle only scored two points at halftime and we were losing by 17, that would have surprised me,” Howland said.

UCLA’s comeback started with a 24-foot three-pointer from Farmar with 14:43 left. It made the score 47-30, and 12 minutes later a two-handed dunk from Hollins brought UCLA within three, 59-56. In between the Bruins got frantically aggressive on offense and began penetrating the West Virginia zone.

“I loved the way we responded when UCLA came back,” West Virginia Coach John Beilein said. “I love the idea that they cut the lead but we didn’t give in.”

The Bruins felt they had let a huge opportunity get away. Howland said West Virginia, which made it to the Elite Eight in last year’s NCAA tournament, would get a top-three seeding this year.

“We’ve been on the verge of cracking the top 10 three times,” Afflalo said, “and we come up one, two points short all the time.

“We lost on our home floor and it was a big chance we had to do something good for the name on the front of this uniform and that hurts.”

*

Nobody’s perfect

The last three unbeatens in college basketball lost on Saturday.

No. 1 DUKE (17-1)

lost to Georgetown, 87-84

* J.J. Redick tied a career high with 41 points, but the Blue Devils were sloppy on defense and fell behind by 16 points before coming up short after a furious rally.

No. 2 FLORIDA (17-1)

lost to Tennessee, 80-76

* The Volunteers take a bite out of the Gators, who entered the game as the last unbeaten and would have moved up to No. 1 with a victory at Knoxville, Tenn.

No. 9 PITTSBURGH (15-1)

lost to St. John’s, 55-50

* The Panthers, playing only their third game outside of Pittsburgh, lost in a defensive struggle to the Redmen, who beat a ranked team for the second time in a week.