News Roundup for A Win Over UC Berkeley

The story of the 76-64 victory  over UC Berkeley was David Wear's first half of 16 points and good work on the boards.

It was David Wear who starred, shaking off an illness earlier this week to score a career-high 18 points. He hit 6-of-10 from the field, including two 3-pointers, as well as four free throws. He added seven rebounds.

In the first half UCLA was dominant across the board.

UCLA set the tone early on by outshooting Cal from the field in the first half, 51.7 percent to 34.5 percent, and it took a 40-29 lead into the halftime locker room.

The first half domination included owning the Boards.

The Bruins (16-4, 5-2) cleaned up the glass in the first half, holding a 21-13 edge at the break.

UC Berkeley made a furious comeback but Kyle would not let us lose and Bryce Alford played well on offense for a key stretch to close out the game.

While Cal never led, they did make things interesting with a furious second half comeback attempt. Down 51-32 early in the second half, Jabari Bird led the Golden Bears on a 20-4 run to pull within three. Bird scored 12 points in the spurt, which spanned just over 8 minutes.

But after Mathews' 3-pointer from the left wing cut the Bruins lead to three, Anderson and Alford took over to prevent a UCLA collapse.

Anderson converted a three-point play on the ensuing possession and followed with a jumper. Alford nailed a jumper and converted a layup on the next two possessions and then found Adams under the basket to give the Bruins a double-digit lead again at 66-55 with 3:22 remaining. Cal didn't have another comeback, and UCLA coasted from there to improve to 13-1 at Pauley Pavilion this season.

Alford scored 11 of his points in the final 8 minutes, including going 5 of 6 from the free throw line.

A couple more notes.  UCLA is now where they were forecast before the season based on talent in second place in the PAC 12.  Kyle and the other big three are leading UCLA and in the last two games a big has come up, well,  "big".  So while some are going to focus on Tony's down game:

Three days after scoring a career-high 22 points against Stanford, sophomore Tony Parker was a non-factor early on, picking up two fouls in 85 seconds and sitting most of the first half. He picked up his fourth foul with 11:58 left in the second half, and headed to the bench again.

He finished the game with a rebound, an assist and a missed shot.

His team hardly missed him.

And others are going to focus on David Wear overcoming adversity for a good game:

David Wear's lungs burned and his chest ached on Sunday evening, still sore from the sickness that swept through UCLA's roster and threatened to hold the Bruins back during their most important week of Pac-12 play.

Victories over Stanford and Cal could elevate them to a second-place tie in the conference, just before a difficult road stretch.

The fact is if UCLA can get decent to good play from the combination of Tony Parker, David Wear and Travis Wear they are a very good team.   There is one player who is indispensable is likely PAC 12 MVP Kyle Anderson who stopped the UC Berkeley run.   Kyle never came out in the second half.

David Wear scored a career-high 18 points, Kyle Anderson finished with 17 points, 12 rebounds and five assists and UCLA never trailed en route to a 76-64 victory over California on Sunday evening.

. . .Leading 55-52 with seven minutes to play, Anderson hit a jump shot at the 6:49 mark and converted the ensuing free throw to push UCLA's lead to 58-52. Anderson responded to a jumper made by Cal's Richard Solomon with a two-point bucket with 6:09 to play, keeping UCLA's lead at 60-53.

"[Steve Alford said:] Kyle Anderson, for playing the whole half, gave us really good minutes even when he was tired."

UCLA will play five of its next seven games on the road. The Bruins will play at Oregon on Thursday, Jan. 28 and at Oregon State on Sunday, March 2. Thursday evening's game in Eugene, Ore., will begin at 6:00 p.m. (PT) and will be nationally televised on ESPN2.

Kyle is the man for the season.  David Wear was the star of the night and gets the last word.

"I'm not sure what I had. I missed a couple of practices, but now I feel a lot better. This was not my flu game."

"I just felt like being active and playing with energy. I was able to put myself in position to make a play on the ball and get open opportunities and to make a basketball play."

Go Bruins.