UCLA Files Away Xavier

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — It was a wipe-out at the starting line, and UCLA was fishtailing all over the floor.

Get to the Sweet 16? For about five folly-filled minutes Saturday against Xavier’s frenetic press defense, the Bruins looked like they might not find their way out of Michigan, if that entailed figuring out how to hold onto a basketball.

Then, as fate, Jelani McCoy’s shot-blocking, Charles O’Bannon’s 28 points, Cameron Dollar’s eight assists and six rebounds, and this team’s innate ability to survive dramatic spills would have it, the Bruins suddenly settled down, filled the fastbreak lanes, and went about hacking apart the Musketeer defense with glee.

The end result was a typically tumultuous 96-83 victory before 21,020 at the Palace of Auburn Hills. It was the Bruins’ 11th consecutive victory and lifted No. 2-seeded UCLA into the Midwest Regional semifinals against No. 6 Iowa State on Thursday in San Antonio.

But the beginning was bawdy, bouncy, breathtaking and perfectly Bruinesque: Eight possessions, six turnovers, from charges to wild passes to 10-second counts against the Xavier press.

“They just got the jump on us,” UCLA point guard Dollar said of the Bruins’ six turnovers in their first eight possessions. “But it’s not like we’ve never had that happen to us before.

“I was at ease looking at the scoreboard and we were only down six. It wasn’t like it was 10-0 or something crazy. We never thought we lost control, so we just refocused and found our groove. . . . We can take a knock and keep on rolling.”

All the kooky play led to what the Bruin players now term the “Lavin 20,” the early, 20-second timeout often called by Coach Steve Lavin when things have not gotten off to a wonderful start.

With 3:16 elapsed, Lavin called the timeout, UCLA having committed five turnovers in a row, and trailing, 8-2.

“I started walking to the bench right away,” Bruin forward J.R. Henderson said. “I knew he was going to call it--when he gets up and starts walking real fast on the sideline, that’s when you know.

“And he just settled us down, that we’d been down before, and something just clicked inside of us, and we were OK.”

Said Lavin: “I just told them that this is how it’s been all season. We were down 16 at Washington, down 16 at home against Oregon. . . . We knew we could get through this if we just kept attacking and stayed aggressive.”

Not immediately. UCLA committed three more turnovers in the next two minutes, and got down, 11-4, but finally began to beat back the Xavier energy with some crisp passing, key minutes by reserve guard Brandon Loyd, and angry defense of its own.

“We’ve faced that kind of intensity, but not with that kind of strength,” said UCLA guard Toby Bailey, who was knocked out of the game early with two quick offensive fouls but still finished with eight assists. “That was a strong team, and they were pushing and shoving us a lot.

“Too bad for them this is not football, right?”

With that easy confidence, UCLA clamped down on Xavier with its 2-3 matchup zone--forcing Musketeer guards Gary Lumpkin and Lenny Brown into the beginnings of what would turn out to be dual horrid shooting nights--then turned to O’Bannon, whose shooting triggered a 21-7 run that lifted UCLA to a 35-22 lead with 5:26 left in the first half.

The Bruins (23-7) committed only three turnovers in the last 13 minutes of the half, allowing their flying fastbreak finishers to attack the basket.

“This team,” said Henderson, who kept UCLA going in the early stages with his offensive rebounding, scoring 22 points overall and stabilizing the Bruins with his ballhandling against the press, “is made for running.”

The game wasn’t over, but the Bruins were past the heavy weather.

“We’re beyond panicking now,” center McCoy said. “We panicked early on the season, when we were 3-3. We’re through with that.”

Xavier’s small but strong inside players--Torraye Braggs, Darnell Williams and James Posey--led the Musketeers back to within five, 45-40, at halftime, then to within two, 49-47, in the early minutes of the second half.

Williams led Xavier with 16 points in the game, and Braggs had a game-high 10 rebounds--seven on the offensive glass.

But then McCoy, who had five blocked shots in the game and could have been credited for at least seven, started erasing Xavier’s inside offense. McCoy, who left the game later with a bruised sternum he said would not affect his availability at San Antonio, blocked three consecutive shots at one point, keying a sudden 8-0 UCLA run.

That turned into 15-2, which became 25-8, which basically put the game away, with UCLA ahead, 74-55.

“I thought the blocks were huge,” Henderson said of McCoy. ‘That’s the kind of team they are, they run wild, and then they take it right up--they were putting it right in his face.

“He blocked it every time they did that, and we were off to the races.”

Said Lavin: “His presence in the middle turned the game around.”

With their inside game gone, it was up to Brown and Lumpkin, and they were not up to it. The seventh-seeded Musketeers (23-7) missed their first 14 three-point tries, and Brown went five for 17 from the field overall and Lumpkin was two for 12.

“I don’t think it was so much a question of what we don’t have,” said Xavier Coach Skip Prosser, “but of what they do have.”

“We’re not even clicking on all cylinders now,” McCoy said, “and we’ve made it to the Sweet 16. Hopefully, we’ll peak at the right time--in the Final Four.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NCAA TOURNAMENT WEST

St. Joseph’s: 81

Boston College: 77 (OT)

Kentucky: 75

Iowa: 69

* Coverage: C10

*

MIDWEST

Iowa State: 67

Cincinnati: 66

UCLA: 96

Xavier: 83

* Coverage: C9

*

EAST

North Carolina: 73

Colorado: 56

California: 75

Villanova: 68

* Coverage: C11

*

SOUTHEAST

Kansas: 75

Purdue: 61

Arizona: 73

Col. of Charleston: 69

* Coverage: C9