After losing its first true road game of the season Thursday at Arizona, No. 3 UCLA will look for a split of the trip to the Arizona schools Saturday night when the Bruins play at Arizona State in Tempe.
The Bruins (16-3, 8-2 Pac-12) were 5-0 in true road games before the 76-66 loss to the seventh-ranked Wildcats, who avenged a loss to UCLA last week in Los Angeles.
Jules Bernard led the Bruins in Thursday’s game with 15 points on a night UCLA shot poorly, making just 38.9 percent from the floor, and 21.4 percent from 3-point range (3-for-14).
UCLA committed only eight turnovers but was outrebounded 44-36 and Arizona’s aggressive play inside led to a free-throw discrepancy of Arizona making 20 of 30 shots from the line compared to UCLA’s 7 of 12.
“Officiating is not why we lost the game, far from it,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “We lost the game. I thought they had better energy, definitely at the start of the game. Defensively, we didn’t get the job done. They got comfortable. You can’t let them get comfortable, offensively. That’s when their shots started going in.”
Arizona State (6-13, 2-7) lost its fourth consecutive game Thursday, a 58-53 home setback to No. 19 USC.
The score was tied at 51 going into the last minute but the Trojans made six free throws to pull away with the win.
USC made only 30 percent of its shots from the field.
“I thought we did some nice things out there again, especially defensively,” Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley said. “The guys competed really well, really hard. We had plenty of chances.”
Arizona State blocked 11 shots, three by Enoch Boakye, with four others recording two (Jalen Graham, Kimani Lawrence, Alonzo Gaffney and Jamiya Neal).
That will be a concern for UCLA, which had nine of its shots swatted by Arizona.
Cody Riley struggled, going 3 of 10 for 10 points against the Wildcats, with two of his attempts blocked.
“Give them credit,” Cronin said. “They made a couple really good plays on him from behind. He’s got to get it up and in more quickly before their second shot-blocker gets there.”
Arizona State stayed in the game by forcing USC into 14 turnovers while the Sun Devils only had six. Yet, the Sun Devils were outrebounded, 58-39, as USC had 20 on the offensive end.
“We couldn’t come up with some of those rebounds after we made them miss in congestion,” Hurley said. “They seemed to get their hands on a lot of those, and we, unfortunately, did not.”
Jalen Graham scored a career-high 19 points on 9-of-14 shooting. Kimani Lawrence had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Marreon Jackson led the Sun Devils with five assists.
The Bruins has won the past three meetings, including a 81-75 overtime victory last season at Tempe, behind Riley’s 22 points and 13 rebounds.
–Field Level Media
