He smiled. He laughed. He cracked jokes.
It felt good to win again. Applause could be heard from inside the Bruins’ locker room Thursday night after they finally had something to celebrate for the first time since late November.
“We were talking about it,” Bona said. “It had been a long time since we had laughed after a game.”
Everybody wearing blue and gold was in a good mood after UCLA’s 69-62 victory over Oregon State at Gill Coliseum in their Pac-12 Conference opener ended so many bad vibes, not to mention a four-game losing streak.
It took an ensemble effort, Bona leading five players in double figures scoring while resembling his dominant form from last season. The sophomore tallied 13 points, eight rebounds and three blocks, more than offsetting his five turnovers while bolstering his coach’s belief that his offense should run through the big man.
“We gotta keep getting him the ball because it puts pressure on [the other team’s] defense,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “We keep making him a better passer, keep working on his offense and just continue to grow.”
Growth was the word of the day for a young team that had wilted so much in recent weeks that its coach acknowledged a confidence problem. But these Bruins (6-6 overall, 1-0 Pac-12) were tougher, their 13 offensive rebounds fueling a 25-11 edge in second-chance points. They were also sharper, committing five fewer turnovers than Oregon State while handing the Beavers (8-4, 0-1) their first home loss of the season.
(Mark Ylen / Associated Press)
Using a 17-2 run midway through the second half, UCLA logged its first victory of the season over a major conference opponent.
Dylan Andrews added 13 points, Brandon Williams had 11 and Lazar Stefanovic and Will McClendon each had 10 to complete the Bruins’ balanced scoring attack. Battling through a stomach ache earlier in the day, Williams’ output was a career high for a freshman who continues to earn a bigger role.
“Just listening to my coaches, playing hard, making the right plays, crashing, just doing everything they ask me to do,” said Williams, who started the second half in place of Berke Buyuktuncel after Cronin was upset that Buyuktuncel had allowed his Oregon State counterpart to grab 11 rebounds in the first half.
Buyuktuncel redeemed himself by forcing a turnover and following a layup with a corner three-pointer to give UCLA a 45-40 lead. He later threw an outlet pass to McClendon for a layup that gave the Bruins a 54-40 advantage, their biggest of the game.
The Bruins arrived here facing both an existential and a real-world basketball crisis. They didn’t have a clear leader. They couldn’t generate easy baskets. They committed dumb fouls. They folded in the final minutes of close games. They couldn’t shoot from long range, their 29.4% accuracy on three-pointers putting them on pace for the worst figure in school history.
Cronin told his team to focus on three things — guard the ball better, stop fouling and get something out of its help defense.
Consider the Bruins three for three. They held Jordan Pope, Oregon State’s leading scorer, to 13 points on five-for-16 shooting. They did not send the Beavers to the free throw line once in the first half. They piled up 32 deflections after finishing in the twenties last week during home losses to Cal State Northridge and Maryland.
UCLA also made nine of 19 three-pointers (a season-high 47.4%), though Cronin said players on a team with seven freshmen are still learning to shrug off misses.
“We still have guys that, you know, look like somebody stole their blankie when they were 4 years old when they miss a shot,” Cronin said.
Struggling to score, the Bruins found a desperately needed source of offense late in the first half when Williams followed a short jumper with a step-back three-pointer, helping UCLA shave what had been a nine-point deficit to 28-24 at halftime.
It was another step forward for a player who just turned 18 last month, and the start of what would be a massive sigh of relief for the Bruins.
“Today kind of changed a lot for us,” Bona said. “Obviously, we needed to win, but at the same time we needed to lift the team’s spirits, so I think this game gave us a lot of confidence and we’re going to continue building on the first step we made today.”