Quick Hits: UCLA Earns Key Win, Arizona Dominates

By Andrew Kahn

The Pac-12 teams that impressed this past weekend.

UCLA 72, Oregon 63

UCLA and Oregon are among the Pac-12 teams hunting for an NCAA Tournament bid. The Bruins tightened up their defense in the second half on Saturday afternoon to move to 8-5 in conference, tied with Oregon in the standings behind Arizona and Utah. Bryce Alford played well at point guard in the first half, distributing early before burying a couple of deep threes. UCLA would have been up more at half but Oregon’s Jalil Abdul-Bassit was on fire. He hit five three-pointers in the first half and finished with a career-high 24 points. Even after he drained a few, the Bruins left him open. In the second half, though, they asserted themselves on both ends. Norman Powell scored 23 points and had some highlight-reel plays. On one, he dribbled through his legs behind his back before dunking. Bassit was contained and Joe Young needed 17 shots to get his 18 points in a rare game in which he didn’t lead Oregon in scoring. Gyorgy Goloman and Thomas Welsh, freshmen in the UCLA frontcourt, gave Steve Aflord effective minutes.

USC 68, Oregon State 55

Oregon State’s road woes continued in a game it couldn’t afford to lose if it wanted to sneak into the NCAA Tournament discussion. After Saturday’s loss, the Beavers are 2-9 away from home. It was just USC’s second conference win. The game was sloppy from the start and never really cleaned up; USC committed 23 turnovers, while Oregon State had 16. Even considering the teams involved—both are above average at forcing turnovers and prone to coughing it up at the other end—those numbers were surprisingly high. For the Trojans to turn it over on such a large percentage of its possessions and still win is almost unheard of, but freshman Elijah Stewart had a huge game, scoring 19 and adding five rebounds, and four assists. The formula has been pretty simple for the Beavers this season in league play: they’re 7-0 when holding opponents under 40 percent shooting and 0-6 when they don’t. USC shot 45 percent. Oregon State’s plane was delayed returning home after a passenger was bit by a scorpion.

The rest of the Pac-12

There were some concerns about Arizona after its loss to Arizona State on Feb. 7, and the Wildcats responded with two blowout victories on their Washington road swing. They beat the Huskies 86-62 on Friday and posted an 86-59 win in Pullman yesterday. While neither opponent is an NCAA Tournament-caliber team, Arizona did what it was supposed to do against them and is looking every bit like a Final Four contender.

Utah closed the first half on a 14-2 run to take a six-point lead against Cal last night. Strong defense in the second half helped them win their fourth straight, 71-56. Washington lost on Friday and Sunday to extend its losing streak to seven games. The last six have come without Robert Upshaw, who was dismissed from the team.

Stanford fell to 7-6 in the Pac-12 after losing at Colorado yesterday. Stanford has shot less than 38 percent in three straight games and hit just 33 percent in Boulder while racking up more turnovers (11) than assists (8).

Andrew Kahn is a regular contributor to CBS Local who also writes for Newsday and The Wall Street Journal. He writes about college basketball and other sports at AndrewJKahn.com. Email him at andrewjkahn@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @AndrewKahn.