LOS ANGELES — UCLA center Joshua Smith arrived at
Staples Center just a fraction ahead of the rest of his teammates on Wednesday
afternoon for the Bruins’ first-round matchup against USC in the Pac-12 tournament.
But the fact that he beat his teammates wasn't a good thing. He did so because,
unlike the rest of the team, he walked from the JW Marriot across the street
from Staples Center. The rest of the Bruins were on the team bus that Smith
missed because he was late.
"I was getting ready and I just kind of timed it close," Smith said.
"It was one of those (moments) where I was leaving my room with about two
or three minutes (to spare) and I looked at my phone and I thought I was on
time but I wasn't."
UCLA head coach Ben Howland didn't care if the team hotel was only across the
street or that Smith narrowly beat the team to Staples Center and suspended his
sophomore center for the first half on Wednesday.
"I wasn't going to play him the first half being late four minutes to the
team bus," Howland said. "It hasn't been something that's been a
problem in terms of him ever being late to the bus but I don't care. This is
too big and too important."
The team didn't arrive to Staples Center together and once they hit the
hardwood they were out of sync for the majority of the first half.
It was an ugly game but somehow the Bruins prevailed 55-40, defeating the
Trojans for the third time this season.
UCLA (19-13) trailed by as many as eight points in the first half to the
Trojans (6-26), whose execution was perhaps its best of the three meetings. Still,
they were held to just eight field goals in the first half and shot just 27.6
percent.
For its part, the Bruins’ accuracy was actually worse — shooting only 23.3
percent in the first half. Most of those shots came from the outside thanks to
the Trojans defense.
"The premise of their defense is to pack everybody in and make you take
jump shots," Howland said. "We took about five jump shots right away
early in the game and missed all of them and it seemed like it continued to
snowball."
It didn't help that the Bruins best low-post threat was on the bench serving a
suspension.
"It hurt us because obviously he's our best inside scoring threat and we
had a real size advantage with him," Howland said.
The teams were scoreless for nearly the first three minutes of the game and neither
team made a field goal over the last two minutes of the first half. But the
Bruins ended the half on a 9-0 run for a 22-21 lead at the break.
"The way the first half ended set us up for failure to be honest because
they had the momentum but they just wore us down on the boards," said USC
head coach Kevin O'Neill, whose team was outrebounded 42-33.
The Bruins’ run in the first half continued into the second half, evolving into
a 26-4 run over both halves, capped by a Tyler Lamb three pointer to give the
Bruins a 39-25 lead with 14:31 to play.
The majority of the Bruins' surge was done without Smith, who didn't make his
first appearance into the game until the 16:03 mark of the second half.
For a team that entered the conference tournament needing to win four games in four
days, the Bruins were sluggish from the start. That can't be the norm if
they're going to continue to advance.
"I don't believe so," David Wear said when asked if his team could
continue in the tournament with a similar performance to what they showed on Wednesday.
"It was a tough game for us. I'm glad we got this out of the way. (We)
realize we have to play better vs. Arizona."
The Bruins will play Arizona (21-10) on Thursday at 2:40 p.m. The teams split
their regular-season meetings, each team holding their home court. UCLA's home
game against the Wildcats was played at Honda Center.
