Bruins roll at Pauley, will try to lose baggage on road

UCLA Coach Ben Howland said he wasn’t even sure who his team was going to play next.

“Oregon State, Oregon?” Howland said.

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FOR THE RECORD:
UCLA basketball: In Sunday’s Sports section, an article on UCLA’s victory over Washington State in basketball reported that the Bruins were two games out of first place in the Pacific 10 Conference, that they had a 1-5 record in games away from their Pauley Pavilion home court and that the nine points scored by guard Mustafa Abdul-Hamid were a career high. UCLA is one game out of first place and 1-6 away from Pauley Pavilion, and Abdul-Hamid’s career high in scoring is 10 points. —

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Bruins forward Nikola Dragovic had the answers and the significance at his fingertips.

“We need to win on the road,” Dragovic said. “We have five of the next seven on the road. It’s going to be tough. But I believe we’ll know what kind of season we’ll have once these games are over.”

The Bruins will toddle down the Oregon trail this week, toting along Saturday’s 74-62 victory over Washington State. The first indication of whether they’ll be road warriors or worriers will come Thursday at Oregon, but their travel advisory will be to play as they did Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.

The Bruins played defense. Going zone may not be Howland’s basketball philosophy, but it is his mantra this season, especially after the Cougars shot 35.6% from the field.

The Bruins played offense. There was beauty, Dragovic’s high-arching jumpers, and the beast, Reeves Nelson’s muscular, direct-to-the-hoop approach. Dragovic had 16 of his 18 points in the second half, Nelson 14 of his 19.

Now the Bruins (9-10 overall, 4-3 in the Pacific 10) take this act on the road, with their season at a crossroads. They are two games out of first place and two games out of last in the conference. They’re also 1-5 in games played away from Pauley Pavilion.

“I already told the guys that Pac-10 gyms are really loud,” said Dragovic, who made three of four three-point attempts. “We’re going to have to be loud on the court, especially in our zone.”

“Zone” and “UCLA” traditionally don’t belong in the same sentence, but this season is a new chapter for the Bruins, and Howland.

“It was actually very poor coaching on my part for not recognizing earlier,” he said. “It’s not something we want to do, but it’s something we need to do in order to be competitive and win games.”

That decision is made easier when the Bruins perform as they did Saturday.

Washington State (14-6, 4-4) came in ranked 27th nationally in field-goal percentage. The Cougars made 21 of 59 shots Saturday and went more than seven minutes in the second half without a field goal.

“We have limited things we can do,” Howland said. “We want to keep it compact. The bottom line is we want to make you beat us from the perimeter and try to get to the shooters as best as we can.”

That can be a dicey philosophy when facing Washington State’s Klay Thompson, who came into the game averaging 22.8 points, sixth nationally.

“Any time we saw him on the court, running anywhere, we yelled out where he was and closed him off,” UCLA forward Tyler Honeycutt said.

Thompson was five for 17 from the field Saturday and finished with 13 points.

“We wanted to be all over him,” Howland said. “We didn’t want him to drive. We didn’t want him to shoot. We wanted him to get rid of the ball.”

Washington State missed seven consecutive shots, three by Thompson, during a key stretch early in the second half. UCLA went on a 16-3 run to lead, 48-33, with 11 minutes left.

The 6-foot-8 Nelson, who came off the bench to make six of eight shots and seven of 12 free throws, scored eight points in that stretch, bulling his way to the basket, where he got layups or was fouled.

“If they’re going to try to guard me one on one, I’m just going to use the abilities God has given me and not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Nelson said.

The Bruins also got a career-high nine points from former walk-on Mustafa Abdul-Hamid, whose buzzer-beater knocked out Washington on Thursday. He made three consecutive shots, two of them three-pointers, in the first half.

“He’s definitely earning his keep,” Howland said, smiling.

chris.foster@latimes.com

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