Coming off a nail-biting loss to rival Arizona on Friday, No. 19 UCLA returns to Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles for a meeting with Sacramento State on Tuesday.
The Bruins (3-1) led last weekend’s showdown at the nearby Intuit Dome by six points with 5:26 remaining. However, Arizona closed on a 16-6 run that included a 7-2 burst over the final 83 seconds.
“On the bigger picture, we gave up 60% (shooting) from the field in the second half, and they made 13 layups,” UCLA head coach Mick Cronin said, emphasizing the learning opportunity for the season still to come. “We have to get better defensively, and much better on the backboard.”
Despite holding each of their last three opponents to fewer than 70 points, the Bruins have endured early-season defensive lapses uncharacteristic of Cronin-coached teams. In the season-opening win over Eastern Washington on Nov. 3, UCLA surrendered 38 points in the paint.
The Bruins allowed another 38 points in the paint to Arizona, as well as 22 points off 16 turnovers and 12 second-chance points.
“Just like Coach said … Defensively, we have to execute,” forward Eric Dailey Jr. said. “Those are areas and things we have to be mentally tough.”
Dailey is one of five Bruins scoring in double figures per game through UCLA’s first four, his 12.3 points a contest putting him in company with Tyler Bilodeau at 17; Donovan Dent at 14.7; Xavier Booker at 10.8; and Trent Perry at 10.
Bilodeau scored 19 points on Friday and shot 3-of-4 from 3-point range to pace a 9-of-17 team effort from deep. However, the Bruins went just 16-of-41 from inside the arc.
UCLA looks to regroup in the first of three nonconference games before jumping into Big Ten Conference play on Dec. 3 at Washington.
The Bruins host a program that, in the past offseason, staked its future on a Los Angeles basketball legend — former Laker great Shaquille O’Neal, now Sacramento State’s general manager — and hired as head coach a former Bruin rival, Mike Bibby.
A first-team All-American at Arizona in 1998 and longtime NBA point guard, Bibby spent at least part of seven seasons with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. He is heading into the sixth regular-season game of his tenure coaching in the city where the peak of his pro playing career came.
The Hornets (3-2) scored their first win against Division I competition under the program’s new regime with a 64-62 defeat of Presbyterian on Sunday. The win included some clutch foul shooting by Shaqir O’Neal, Shaquille’s son, who is 7-of-8 at the foul line on the young season.
“I just think of my dad,” O’Neal said to the State Hornet of his foul shooting. The elder O’Neal shot just 52.7% at the free-throw line in his 19-year NBA career.
“Every time I get to the line, they literally just talk about my dad and his free throws. I just take my time.”
The close victory followed a pair of near-misses: 92-87 against preseason Big West Conference favorite UC Santa Barbara last Tuesday, and 77-73 at UC Davis on Friday.
Jeremiah Cherry, who finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds in the win, is averaging close to a double-double per game through Sacramento State’s first five at 18.2 points and 9.6 rebounds.
Prophet Johnson is also posting close to a double-double per game at 16.4 points and 9.8 rebounds, while Mikey Williams is averaging another 16.4 points.
Williams scored 30 points in the Hornets’ loss to UCSB.
