UCLA fades in loss to No. 20 Purdue, complicating its path in the Big Ten tourney
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An arena known for noise was oddly quiet when a referee, unhappy with all the contact between the post players, reached his arm out to separate UCLA’s Tyler Bilodeau from Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn.
Seizing upon the moment with his team needing a boost, Kaufman-Renn waved his arms to raise the decibel level inside Mackey Arena and the fans complied.
With one move after another, Kaufman-Renn provided all the more reason to rock the place.
He made a tough, contested baseline jump hook. Then another jump hook.
What had been a taut, back-and-forth battle was suddenly tilting heavily in the Boilermakers’ direction.
The Bruins are 8-0 this season when Aday Mara plays at least 15 minutes, a fact coach Mick Cronin is well aware of.
When Camden Heide added a three-pointer, No. 20 Purdue was ahead by nine points and well on the way to a 76-66 victory on Friday night that essentially ended the Bruins’ hopes of a top-four finish in the Big Ten and an accompanying double bye in the conference tournament.
Kaufman-Renn was a menace no matter who the Bruins assigned to defend him, finishing with 29 points on 11-for-15 shooting to help Purdue (20-9 overall, 12-6 Big Ten) end its four-game losing streak. He sparked the Boilermakers’ 12-0 run that transformed a one-point deficit into an 11-point lead with two free throws and his jump hooks.
Meanwhile, the Bruins kept shooting jump shots that were off the mark. UCLA missed six of seven shots before Aday Mara made a jump hook with 3:23 left and the Bruins went the final 2:33 without a field goal.
Bilodeau finished with 15 points and Sebastian Mack scored all 10 of his points in the first half for the Bruins (20-9, 11-7), who shot 48% to the Boilermakers’ 51.9%. UCLA outrebounded Purdue by eight but largely offset that margin by committing five more turnovers.
UCLA could not conjure any magic in its return to the spot on John R. Wooden Drive that sparked its 2021 run from the First Four to the Final Four, a statue of the “Indiana Rubber Man” outside the arena serving as a tribute to the former Boilermakers star.
But for a few minutes in the second half, it looked like the Bruins might have something special working here.
Having once trailed by 10 points and appearing on the verge of being blown out, UCLA took its first lead shortly after halftime. Dylan Andrews drove and passed to Bilodeau for a layup in which he was fouled, the resulting three-point play giving the Bruins a 42-40 advantage.
Kobe Johnson played a big part in the comeback, throwing a beautiful outlet pass to Eric Dailey Jr. for a dunk, rising for a three-pointer at the end of the shot clock and zipping a nice bounce pass to William Kyle III for another dunk.
The start couldn’t have gone any worse for Johnson or the Bruins.
On their first possession, Skyy Clark grabbed an offensive rebound before getting tied up for a turnover on the alternating possession. On their second possession, Johnson threw a bad pass that was stolen. On their third possession, a Clark pass was stolen. On their fourth possession, Johnson traveled.
Four UCLA possessions, four turnovers.
Fans increasingly do not like how Mick Cronin behaves on the court, but they would be a lot more forgiving if UCLA was in position to end its championship drought.
Purdue combined the extra possessions with some hot shooting to surge to a 29-19 lead. But a turning point came when UCLA’s Dailey, Bilodeau and Lazar Stefanovic each grabbed an offensive rebound on the same possession, leading to a Mack three-pointer.
The rebounding spree was emblematic of a first half in which the Bruins dominated in that department, outrebounding the Boilermakers, 20-7. UCLA’s winning big on the boards — the Bruins’ 10 offensive rebounds exceeded Purdue’s total — was all the more impressive given that Mara played only three minutes after getting beaten a couple of times on defense and playing a part in a busted pick and roll.
Mack earned a first bump from coach Mick Cronin at halftime after making all four of his shots on the way to 10 points. The Bruins were down only 37-35 after committing nine turnovers and allowing the Boilermakers to shoot 60%.
It would get better for UCLA before getting much, much worse.
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