INDIANAPOLIS: There will be time for BYU basketball to reflect on the magic of the 2020-21 season, the team’s first NCAA tournament offer since 2015, and a return to the Big Dance colloquially known as “March Madness, “the largest North American sports show.
This moment will come.
But it wasn’t Saturday night at the historic Hinkle Fielddhouse.
Playing with an ankle tied, Johnny Juzang added 27 points and Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists as UCLA won its second game in three nights with a resounding 73-62 victory over BYU , which ended with the Cougars. first appearance in the tournament since 2015 after a single match.
A year after winning a UCLA team almost identical to Hawaii’s Maui Invitational, the Cougars couldn’t win the same wave.
Alex Barcello led BYU with 20 points and five rebounds, and senior teammate Brandon Averette scored 10 of his 15 points in the second half for the Cougars, who finished with 11 at halftime and never finally reached the lead.
Matt Haarms contributed 11 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks blocked by BYU (20-7).
“There’s a lot of feeling right now,” an exciting Haarms said through a Zoom microphone in the tunnels under the Indianapolis-based court. “That was my college career … it sucks, coming out like that in the first round.”
After falling behind soon after, BYU played catch-up and never caught up with the Pac-12 Bruins sprint, who advanced five teams to the round of 16, including Oregon’s unbeaten win. about VCU with virus.
For UCLA, the joy of a March race continues. For BYU, the agony of defeat.
“That’s what we’re going through. This is the highest time in college basketball and playing the Bruins, I’m from Los Angeles, we’re all brothers,” said Juzang, a Harvard-Westlake High School product in Tarzan, California. “Playing for the home team and making everyone on the team feel proud, and everyone in the stands, is a great feeling to bring home victories to the UCLA Bruins.”
The highs on one side of the field and the lowest sensation in BYU’s history in five years. Welcome to March.
Offensively, there were too many shots that BYU usually made that didn’t come out Saturday night: the hook shot of Haarms, Barcello’s jumper. The Cougars threw 10 more free throws than UCLA, but made just 7 of 13 from the solidarity strip, while the Bruins sat 3 of 3 before the final four minutes.
BYU fired 49% from the field, but only a 3-of-17 from 3-point range, including a characteristic 1-of-7 in the second half, and made only 9-of-16 free throws.
“Obviously we didn’t throw the ball well from the 3-point line or from the free-throw line,” said BYU coach Mark Pope, who matched the excitement of his top Averette tip when he left the track with his face buried in his white T-shirt with the words “Brigham” on the front. “Accredit UCLA for that. They had us on their feet for a significant portion of the first half.
“Sometimes it happens. We’ve been able to get through nights like this before this season. We just haven’t gotten through tonight. Sometimes there will be nights when the ball doesn’t shoot well. We have answers; we can still win games. We just haven’t got it. tonight “.
It happens, but not by chance.
“What we wanted to do tonight was not to give up a lot of three,” said UCLA coach Mick Cronin, whose team has won consecutive games for the first time since finishing a four-run career. consecutive Feb. 25 against Utah. “A team like BYU, the three-point shot is their fuel.”
BYU looked like a team that hadn’t played under the bright lights of the NCAA tournament in nearly six years, which, to be fair, were the ones that had last reached the top 68 field in college basketball in 2015.
BYU missed their first six shots, at which point Barcello took the lid off the basket with a score of 3 to 16:10 at halftime. The Cougars controlled the cup early and didn’t let UCLA bounce offensively for nearly six minutes, but BYU never led the first half.
In 40 minutes of play, BYU never led. The Bruins stayed ahead on the scoreboard for every 55 seconds less.
UCLA shot 15 of 31 from the field in the first half, including 6 of 10 from the 3-point range, and scored 11 points from seven losses.
Just two nights after leaving the Bruins ’first game against Michigan State with a right ankle injury, Juzang added 19 points in the 11-point eight in the first half, including three triples, for a UCLA team which had BYU just two assists on 11 field goals.
“The first half was a struggle for us, because of Juzang and his way of playing,” Haarms said. “We were unable to execute our game plan.
“In the second half, we got him back to five and then they pushed him to 11. We just weren’t able to catch up against them when it mattered.”
The Cougars used a 9-0 boost to reduce the deficit to four, 43-39 in the second half, keeping the Bruins goalless in five consecutive possessions in a span of 3:18. But UCLA responded with its own 7-2 boost and pushed the lead back to 11 in the middle of the second half.
BYU found is scoring shoes in the second half to hang with UCLA.
Stopping the Bruins turned out to be another problem. Stopping Juzang was especially problematic, but UCLA added Jaquez and Jules Bernard (16 points, five rebounds) while outsourcing the BYU bench by 13-7.
Aside from the three seniors, Caleb Lohner had the most significant night with 6 points and 10 rebounds. But first-year Wasatch Academy student also struggled with four fouls.
“It’s a game. It’s March. It happens,” Pope said. “But believe UCLA; they played really well and we just couldn’t get over the hump.”