BRUINS RUN AWAY FROM ASU
Jaime Jaquez Jr. helped keep UCLA afloat in the first half of Thursday night’s game against Arizona State.
In the second half, his teammates helped pick up the slack.
Jaquez scored 19 of his 26 points in the first half of the fourth-ranked Bruins’ 79-61 victory over the Sun Devils at Pauley Pavilion.
“We got down and I was upset myself. I knew that I don’t have many games left, so I’m gonna go down swinging,” Jaquez said. “My teammates were able to find me in open spots. I was trying to do everything I could just to put our team back into the game.”
Jaylen Clark scored all 15 of his points in the second half and Tyger Campbell scored nine of his 16 after halftime as the Bruins (26-4, 17-2 Pac-12) pulled away in the second half for their ninth straight win.
“When you get to March, you’ve just got to win and get some rest. You have to move on quickly, the most important thing is the next game,” coach Mick Cronin said.
UCLA has clinched the regular-season Pac-12 championship, but has aspirations for a top seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament, preferably in the West Region. It faces a huge test on Saturday when it hosts No. 8 Arizona, which dealt
No. 4
the Bruins a 58-52 loss in the first meeting on Jan. 21.
Cronin, though, is trying to avoid bracketology talk.
“I’m not going to get into it. I really would like to be in the West and for my team to be treated the way they deserve to be treated. That’s all I’ll say,” he said.
Jaquez scored 15 of UCLA’s first 19 points. He started 6 of 8 from the field while the rest of the team was 1 for 11.
No. 1 Houston 83, Wichita State 66: Jamal Shead scored a career-high 25 points, Marcus Sasser added 24 and Houston (28-2, 16-1 American Athletic Conference) defeated visiting Wichita State (15-14, 8-9).
No. 5 Purdue 63, Wisconsin 61: Zach Edey had 17 points and 19 rebounds as Purdue outlasted host Wisconsin (16-13, 8-11), damaging the Badgers’ NCAA Tournament hopes.
Purdue (25-5, 14-5) already had clinched the Big Ten regular-season title outright before the end of this game by virtue of Illinois’ 9187 double-overtime victory over Michigan.
No. 8 Arizona 87, USC 81: Azuolas Tubelis scored 25 points and had 10 rebounds as visiting Arizona defeated USC in a battle of secondplace Pac-12 teams.
Courtney Ramey added 16 points and four assists for the Wildcats (25-5, 14-5).
Boogie Ellis (Mission Bay High) had 35 points on 11 of 20 shooting to lead the Trojans (21-9, 13-6). He fouled out with 19 seconds left.
West
Stanford 83, Oregon State 60: Spencer Jones scored 25 points and made five 3-pointers to lead Stanford (13-17, 7-12 Pac-12) to a victory over host Oregon State (10-20, 4-15).
Jones was 10 of 16 from the floor. Brandon Angel added 15 points for Stanford, which shot 30 of 51 overall and 12 of 21 from long range. Maxime Raynaud scored 13 points and Harrison Ingram added 10.
Scoring record holds
Antoine Davis outscored them all — except for “Pistol” Pete.
Detroit Mercy’s star guard finished four points shy of surpassing Pete Maravich as the NCAA career scoring leader, scoring 22 in a gritty 71-66 loss to Youngstown State in the Horizon League tournament.
Davis came in needing 26 points to break Maravich’s hallowed mark of 3,667 points that stood for over 50 years. But after picking up his fourth foul with 3:36 left, the slender 6-foot-1 guard, who was trapped and double-teamed for much of his 38 minutes by the top-seeded
Penguins, couldn’t drive as effectively to the basket.
With Maravich’s record still within reach, Davis missed four 3-pointers — one of them a wide-open look — in the final two minutes of an intense game.
While disappointed with the loss and falling short of Maravich, Davis felt pride afterward.
“It’s really special,” he said, leaning against a wall outside Detroit Mercy’s locker room. “Maybe in 20 or 25 years somebody is going to be doing the same thing that I did, chase that record, maybe even sooner than that.”
Women No. 6 Stanford 76, Oregon 65:
Cameron Brink had 22 points and 11 rebounds as Stanford (28-4) overcame a lot of early misses and beat Oregon 76-65 on Thursday in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals in Las Vegas. Te-Hina Paopao (La Jolla Country Day) scored 28 points for the Ducks (17-14).
No. 19 UCLA 73, No. 21 Arizona 59:
Emily Bessoir had 18 points and 13 rebounds for her first career double-double, Charisma Osborne also scored 18 points and UCLA beat Arizona in the Pac-12 Tournament. UCLA (24-8), a No. 5 seed, advances to the semifinals today after handing Arizona (21-9) its first threegame skid of the season.