David Crisp and Jaylen Nowell scored 15 points a piece to lead the Washington Huskies to a 69-55 win over UCLA at Alaska Airlines Arena on Saturday. Washington is now undefeated half way through conference play with nine games to go until the Pac-12 tournament.
During the Huskies 11 game winning streak they’ve made a habit of jumping to early leads so it came as a surprise UCLA was the aggressor on Saturday starting the game on a 12-4 run. No different than their win over USC on Wednesday, Washington struggled with carelessness of the ball with 10 of the Bruins first 14 points coming off of Washington turnovers.
But if you can count on one thing, the Huskies seem to always snap out of their bad spells, Crisp hit a 3-pointer at the 10:59 mark that tied the game at 14, then his team picked it up on defense at one point forcing three UCLA turnovers in a row.
While the Bruins came into the game averaging 14.9 turnovers per game, the Huskies forced them into 18 in the first-half alone. Many of them caused by Mattise Thybulle who had 6 steals in the games’ first 20 minutes.
Jaylen Nowell held for the last shot, drove left off of a Timmins screen and made a 30 footer right before the halftime buzzer to give Washington a 31-23 lead. They even came out firing opening the second-half on a 6-0 run.
Later UCLA’s Cody Riley got a technical foul for hanging on the rim and Crisp made the ensuing free throw to put the Huskies up 46-32. UCLA answered with a 7-0 run forcing Hopkins into a timeout with 11:11 to go.
After the team’s traded possessions, Nowell took a saved ball from Crisp, dribbled through traffic, and then made a nifty drive finishing with his left hand as he was fouled. He made the free-throw to complete the 3-point play pushing the Husky lead back to double digits.
With 4:14 to go Thybulle ended any hopes of a UCLA comeback by nailing a corner 3. Washington went up 63-48 sending the crowd into a frenzy and the Dawgs would hold on for their 18th win of the season.
Keys to the Game
Washington shot the ball a lot better than UCLA
Both teams played a lot of zone and made a concerted effort to clog the paint. The Bruins did not do a good job contesting the perimeter where Washington was lethal going 11 of 24 from beyond the arc. The Bruins only made 4 of their 15 3-point attempts and many of those misses were open looks. UCLA leading scorer Kris Wilkes finished with a game-high 20 points but he was 8 of 19 from the field and missed all 5 of his 3-point attempts.
The Huskies held their own on the glass
This was my only concern coming into this game. Washington is 10th in the Pac-12 in rebounding and gives up a lot of offensive rebounds. UCLA came in 1st in the conference in rebounding. The Huskies did a nice job of boxing out, Brown was limited to just 1 offensive rebound (he averages 4) and UCLA only managed 10 second chance points out of their 8 offensive boards. Washington was only outrebounded 29 to 33 even though their leading rebounder Noah Dickerson went out twice with injuries and only played 14 minutes.
Both teams were sloppy but the Huskies less so
Credit UCLA, they employed the same full-court pressure that gave the Huskies trouble down in Eugene. As mentioned above, the Huskies kept turning the ball over to start the game which has to stop.
But while the Huskies finished with 17 turnovers, only 10 were in the games final 33 minutes. The Huskies ended up forcing the Bruins into 23 turnovers and scored 21 points off of them.
Outlook: Washington will take the show on the road as their next three games are at Arizona, Arizona State and Washington State. While the Wildcats and Cougars are in a bit of a spiral right now, Washington will get their best shot. The question will be the recovery (and availability) of Noah Dickerson who suffered an ankle sprain in the 2nd half according to coach Mike Hopkins. Hopkins was optimistic Dickerson will be okay, time will tell. On to the player grades…
Dickerson – 7 – Dickerson didn’t really get a chance to establish himself going to the locker room on two occasions which injuries but in his 14 minutes he was dominant on the glass with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Wright – 6 – Wright played just 10 minutes not scoring or grabbing a rebound but he did have a nice block from behind in the 2nd half.
Thybulle – 9 – It’s hard to complain about his turnovers (he had four more Saturday after five on Wednesday) when he makes up for it on the other end. Saturday was his second-consecutive game with 7 steals. Thybulle finished with 14 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assist. He was also 3 for 5 from beyond the arc. and each make was an emotional lift.
Nowell – 8 – Nowell really picked up the rebounding load while Dickerson was out grabbing 8 total for the game. He also had 4 assist and just 2 turnovers displaying a really good feel for breaking the Bruins full-court pressure.
Crisp – 8.5 – Crisp scored 12 of the Huskies 31 first-half points. He went noticeably cold in the second half going just 1 of 5 from the field but he played good defense all night ending up with 2 steals.
Bey – NR – In 6 minutes Bey had a steal and an assist.
Hardy – NR – Hardy got a steal in 1 minute of spot duty.
Carter – 6.5 – It was interesting watching some of UCLA’s more talented players, play out of control and seeing Carter make saavy plays, a testament to how far he has come. He hit a 3 and had an electric drive in the first half, but was scoreless in the second.
Green – 7 – It was a tale of two halves for Green. He looked out of sorts in the first half and going just 1 for 5 and letting a pass go off his face from Nowell where he didn’t appear to be paying attention. He hit two 3’s in the second-half and really settled into the game.
Timmins 9 – The TV cameras focused quite a bit on Timmins father who was in attendance and the big man didn’t disappoint. He played 24 minutes and really made his presence felt scoring 7 points, grabbing 6 rebounds and blocking 3 shots. With Dickerson out the Huskies needed someone to be physical inside and Timmins did just that at one point dunking on a UCLA player and following another miss with a tip-jam. My favorite play of the game was right after Timmins was called for a charge on a flop by Riley, Timmins took the contact from Riley on the other end and Riley was called for a charge. Timmins went to the bench with a big smile on his face where he was thoroughly embraced by Hopkins and his teammates.
