COLLEGE PARK, MD – No. 24 UCLA (11-5, 2-3) was outmatched by the University of Maryland (12-4, 2-3) 79-61 for their third straight loss Friday, Jan. 10.
Maryland junior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie was the clear standout of the game. The shooter knocked down 27 points on 7-13 shooting, including four threes. Gillespie went to the free throw line more than any other player from either team and he made the most of it, shooting a perfect 9-9.
UCLA junior forward Tyler Bilodeau was the Bruins’ scoring powerhouse, scoring 18 points off 7-12 FG shooting. Bilodeau slowed down significantly in the second half, however, only scoring four in the final 20 minutes. Senior guard Kobe Johnson led the Bruins in both rebounds and assists, with six and four respectively.
The first half began as an even match. Maryland jumped out to an early lead, but the Bruins rallied back and took their first lead of the night 8-7 with 17:01 remaining in the half. The next three minutes were a back and forth exchange until Maryland took off an 11-0 run to regain the lead 20-13.
Maryland led by as much as 10 points in the first half, and entered halftime up four 40-36. They would have been up more had UCLA not knocked down two clutch threes and a jumper by Bilodeau with three seconds left in the first in a late 8-2 run to cut the lead down.
UCLA’s defense, typically a strength of the Bruins squad, was outmatched by the Terrapins, especially in the first half where Maryland had the advantage on rebounds.
"Defensively, we've regressed," UCLA head coach Mick Cronin said in a postgame interview. "It's a mindset... to be a great defensive team you have to be totally committed to it. It's not easy."
Maryland also outmatched UCLA physically, scoring 38 points in the paint compared to just 20 points in the paint by the Bruins.
"We kind of just let them push us around," Johnson said. "We weren't making anything difficult for them... we got to change that on defense."
Maryland began to pull away late in the second half with a 8-0 scoring run to put Maryland up 66-54 with around five minutes remaining, nailing four straight shots to do it.
Even after the Bruins broke their own scoring drought, the Terrapins kept pushing. They went off with 10 unanswered points to widen their lead 79-55 with just over a minute left.
The Bruins went down fighting, knocking down the final six points of the game, but it was too little, too late. The Terrapins took the win 79-61, a margin of 18.
Turnovers killed the Bruins throughout the match. They gave up 21 turnovers and Maryland took advantage, scoring 26 points off turnovers in total throughout the game.
"We can't be that team," UCLA sophomore forward/guard Eric Dailey Jr. said in a postgame interview. "We're normally the team getting people to turn the ball over. That wasn't us tonight. We have no excuses for how we turned the ball over."
The deciding factor in the match was Maryland’s ability to continue scoring runs and keep their momentum, whereas UCLA struggled to do so. Maryland had five different runs of six unanswered points or more in the game while UCLA only had two such runs.
Maryland’s scoring runs especially helped them in the second half, where they really put some ground between themselves and the Bruins, outsourcing UCLA by 14.
An area the Bruins did better in during the loss was their performance from beyond the arc. They went 6-18 from three, an improvement over their performances of the previous two games.
The Bruins look to change their luck with an away game against Rutgers, Monday, Jan. 13 at 3:30 pm.
"We're on a tough stretch of games," Cronin said in a postgame interview. "We've got to dig in."