On Thursday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to #21 UCLA by a final score of 80-66. Jaime Jaquez, Jr. led the way for the Bruins with 27 points and 4 rebounds while Amari Bailey (19 points) and Tyger Campbell (17 points & 8 assists) also scored in double figures. Spencer Jones was the top performer for the Cardinal with 18 points on 7-10 shooting from the field and 3-5 shooting from 3-point range. UCLA improves to 6-2 overall and 1-0 in the Pac-12 while Stanford falls to 3-5 overall and 0-1 in the Pac-12.
“The game came out, from the tip it was a little bit of a shock and awe for us,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “We were back on our heels immediately. Their press was aggressive and I thought we have the plan of attack and how to do it, but we weren’t able to execute that plan and I think it was six turnovers in the first four minutes and the lead ballooned up. After that it was a significant uphill battle.”
UCLA popped Stanford in the mouth at the start of the game, leading 10-0 with 17:17 to go in the first half. Jaquez already had 6 points. Stanford called for time, hoping to get their minds right.
UCLA’s lead would expand 15-0 with 15:17 to go in the half. Bailey was leading UCLA with 7 points while Stanford was up to 6 turnovers. The Cardinal needed to wake up.
With 11:45 to go in the half, it was a 24-6 lead for UCLA. Jaquez was leading the way for UCLA with 8 points. James Keefe had 4 points for Stanford. UCLA was shooting a ridiculous 11-13 (84.6%) from the field while Stanford had 8 turnovers.
UCLA would lead 32-9 with 7:23 to go in the half. Bailey was up to 11 points for UCLA. UCLA was shooting 14-20 (70.0%) from the field while Stanford was shooting 4-14 (28.6%). It was then 32-15 after back-to-back threes from Ryan Agarwal and Spencer Jones.
With 3:54 to go until halftime, it was a 38-17 lead for UCLA. Bailey was leading UCLA with 13 points and 4 rebounds. Stanford was trying to get it rolling from 3-point range, but they weren’t able to do so, shooting 3-13.
At halftime, it was a 50-29 lead for UCLA. Jaquez and Bailey each had 15 points for the Bruins. Keefe was leading the Cardinal with 7 points and 3 rebounds. He was battling inside and doing his part, but others needed to get going.
“Yeah, James is a warrior,” Haase said of Keefe. “Competes all the time. I think a lot of times his energy and passion does spread to others on the team as well. Obviously he came off the bench today and we’ve had some slow starts, just continue to try and tinker and change and evolve. Whatever I did didn’t work because it was not a fast start for us today.”
To Stanford’s credit, they came out with some fire in the second half. Spencer Jones nailed a three after which they got a key stop. 50-36 UCLA lead with 18:20 to go as the Bruins called for time.
“Basically we have to, we can’t play from our heels,” Haase said of what he told the team at halftime. “Offensively, obviously we got back and turned the basketball over and weren’t aggressive. And then on the defensive end there was literally zero ball pressure and we just took punches for twenty minutes. Start of the second half, I thought our ball pressure was better and we tried to dictate the terms of the games a little bit more, but in the first half we did not do that, which led to I think a lot of mistakes with hustle plays. 50/50 balls, rebounds, and the whole mindset was not what we needed it to be.”
“It was just like coach said, literally ball pressure,” Spencer Jones added. “Our attitude was completely different in the second half. I take a lot of that on my shoulders. Starting off the game, had three of those six turnovers. That’s not the way I need to lead this team. So, just coming out being aggressive like I was in the second half has to be the standard for us.”
With 15:55 to go, UCLA led 56-38. Stanford opened the second half on a 9-0 run to which UCLA countered with a 6-0 run. UCLA would then lead 64-43 with 11:51 to go. The second half was tied 14-14. Stanford was playing better, but that 17-0 hole they dug themselves in the first half really set them back. Jaquez was up to 21 points for UCLA while Spencer Jones was up to 15 points for Stanford.
With 6:59 to go, it was a 66-53 lead for UCLA. Agarwal was up to 8 points for Stanford after a nice layup. Stanford was outscoring UCLA 24-16 in the second half. They were still fighting.
To Stanford’s credit, they continued to scrap and claw, making it a 66-58 game with 4:23 to go after a 3-pointer from Brandon Angel. It could have been even closer had Stanford gotten some buckets inside to fall and also connected on a couple of passes.
“We want to work on the fundamentals,” Haase said. “I do believe we work on the fundamentals a lot. And I have all my friends in the business and I’ve been in it for a long time, we talk about how we catch the basketball, how we pivot, how we look, how we ball fake. And the fundamentals is something we’re going to continue to emphasize. Without the proper fundamentals those things don’t happen.
“We’re not going to be able to deliver those passes. When you’re down big like we were and starting to come back, sometimes we made aggressive plays and to be honest with you, the aggressive plays in the second half that went out of bounds, we need to correct those and I think those are correctable. But the plays in the first half we were back on our heels and we were just burping it up to them. Those are the things that we have to rectify. The other ones in the second half I think are a lot simpler to rectify.”
In the end, UCLA would win 80-66. Stanford outscored UCLA 37-30 in the second half. The problem was they got in far too deep of a hole in the first half. You cannot get down 17-0 and expect to come back. It’s that simple.
The biggest issue for Stanford was handling ball pressure and playing too much on their heels in the first half. Come second half, they were a lot better defensively and were on the attack. The problem, as was said above, was come halftime, the damage had already been done.
At this point, all Stanford can do is learn from this game and move on to their next game, which will be on Sunday at Arizona State. That will tipoff at 4:00 PM PT on ESPN2.
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