Five UCLA players scored in double figures Thursday and the Bruins used a 17-2, second-half run to end a four-game losing streak, stopping Oregon State 69-62 in each team’s Pac-12 Conference opener in Corvallis, Ore.
Dylan Andrews and Adem Bona each scored 13 points for the Bruins (6-6, 0-1 Pac-12), while Brandon Williams came off the bench to add 11.
Lazar Stefanovic and Will McClendon tallied 10 points apiece as UCLA hit 53.3 percent of its field-goal attempts after halftime.
Dexter Akanno scored a game-high 22 points for the Beavers (8-4, 0-1), whose five-game winning streak ended. Oregon State had been 8-0 at home.
Oregon State’s Jordan Pope added 13 points and four assists but made only 5 of 16 shots from the field. Tyler Bilodeau chipped in 10 points and a game-high 14 rebounds.
Trailing 38-37 with 14 minutes left in the game after Akanno sank a 3-pointer, UCLA went on its game-altering spurt. McClendon started the run with a 3-pointer and ended it with a layup at the 9:02 mark for a 54-40 advantage.
Oregon State endured a stretch of nearly six minutes in which it made just one field goal.
The Bruins finished with a 25-11 cushion in second-chance points and a 21-12 advantage in bench points.
The first half looked like more of the same for UCLA as it again struggled to hit shots while adding rebounding issues to the list of worries.
The Bruins needed nine minutes to reach double figures on offense and started the game an ugly 4 of 17 from the field. They went more than three minutes at one stage without scoring before a 3-pointer from Stefanovic at the 7:03 mark ended that drought.
Oregon State was able to carve out a pair of nine-point leads as Pope got going late in the half, accounting for eight straight points with a mid-range jumper, a 3-pointer and an assist on an Akanno 3-pointer. Akanno led the way with nine points as the Beavers took a 28-24 advantage to the break.
–Field Level Media
