Washington and UCLA commemorated their first Big Ten basketball game as fellow conference members by seeing who could belly up the most, push each other out of the paint with emphasis and completely shut off the scoring spigot at times in Los Angeles. It was hardly pretty, definitely hard-nosed.
In the end on Tuesday night, UCLA was able to squeeze more offensive life out of the Huskies and won this defensive standoff, pulling away for a 69-58 victory at Pauley Pavilion in the house that Johnny Wooden built, though the man known as the Wizard of Westwood didn’t necessarily have this sort of inartistic style of play in mind.
Typical of this old-style encounter, Great Osobor led the Huskies (6-2) in scoring with 14 points on 4-for-11 shooting, while fellow forward Tyler Harris backed him with 12 points and 11 rebounds, hitting just 3 of 9 shots.
A Washington state-produced player, 6-foot-10 post player Tyler Bilodeau from Kennewick and an Oregon State transfer, shared game scoring honors for the Bruins (7-1) with guard Sebastian Mack, each finishing with 16.
From the opening tip, these teams submitted to a grind-it-out battle in their first league encounter with Midwest membership. At times, these former Pac-12 combatants pressed each other simultaneously, with the Bruins employing full-court defenders, while the UW responded with half-court traps. Each suffered through six-minute scoring droughts before halftime.
Under orders from their coaches to slug it out, they hung close early on, with Huskies taking the lead 12-11 on Mekhi Mason’s three-point play on a reverse layup and a free throw with 14:10 left in the opening half. It would be the UW’s last lead of the game.
Sprinkle’s guys didn’t score for the next six minutes, enabling UCLA to put together a 12-0 run for a 23-12 lead. It was capped by a put-back by 7-foot-3 reserve center Aday Mara, a Spaniard and the third-tallest player in college basketball.
Yet the Huskies responded by shutting off the UCLA offense for a spell, answering with a 9-0 run to get back in it, creeping within 23-21 on Tyree Ihenacho’s driving lay-in with 4:19 left.
The opening half ended with the Bruins up 29-24 and 1940s basketball fans applauding the effort.
After the break, it was time to see who was the toughest team on the floor. The Bruins made an initial bid by jumping out to a 37-28 lead on Kobe Johnson’s 3-pointer.
It was the Huskies’ turn to play defense. They got within two, at 45-43, on Mason’s deep 3-pointer with 11:03 left in the game, but that was it.
UCLA went on an 11-0 run, with Dylan Andrews’ 3-pointer putting his team up 56-43 and it was time to play out the string.
The Big Ten welcomed them whole-heartedly with this lead-with-the-chin encounter.
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