It was the sort of game where the goals were fairly simple.
Escape the upset and avoid injuries while improving as much as possible against a severely overmatched opponent.
UCLA succeeded on most fronts Tuesday night.
The No. 18 Bruins’ 111-75 victory over Prairie View A&M was so comfortable that UCLA coach Mick Cronin could substitute freely and used just a sprinkling of his trademark quick hooks after mistakes.
There wasn’t much to complain about except maybe some defensive slippage and a few sloppy stretches in a game with little intrigue. After reserve guard Dominick Harris entered the game with only a few minutes left and quickly committed a foul, Cronin roared, “What did I say?” so loudly that his words could be heard in the upper reaches of the arena.
What was Cronin mad about?
“We kept fouling toward the end of the game and we kept stopping the clock,” point guard Dylan Andrews said. “His main thing to us was to be in the gaps because we knew that they were a driving team, and sometimes we failed at it. That’s why he was on us.”
There were also plenty of pleasing developments. Andrews scored 21 points on eight-for-12 shooting to go with six assists and forward Tyler Bilodeau had 18 points. Harris also redeemed himself with a nifty assist and only his second three-pointer of the season.
Next up is a far greater challenge. The Bruins (10-1) will take their nine-game winning streak to New York for a game Saturday at Madison Square Garden against fellow blue blood North Carolina.
UCLA’s offense will head into that showdown in high gear after registering a season high for points … with 10:16 left in the game. That can happen when you shoot 59%, make 47.6% of your three-point attempts and convert 29 of 37 free throws.
UCLA’s defense wasn’t as crisp, particularly on the perimeter. Reserve guard Jordan Tillmon made six of seven three-point shots on the way to 24 points for the Panthers (1-10), who shot 47.1% and 47.6% from long range in scoring the most points of any Bruins opponent this season.
Cronin wasn’t upset given his team held Prairie View A&M below its season average for points and got a taste of the high tempo it will face against the Tar Heels.
“They average 80 a game and they’ve got guys who can shoot, man,” Cronin said of the Panthers.
Bruins forward Eric Dailey Jr. scored 14 points and center Aday Mara contributed nine points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and three assists in 16 minutes off the bench. Cronin said guard Sebastian Mack played only three minutes because he showed up not ready to play and was dealing with knee swelling as a remnant of last weekend’s victory over Arizona.
“Sent him a message as well as rested him,” Cronin said with a hint of a smile. “Not ready to play, don’t deserve to play. It’s called accountability. Now, I know everybody else thinks I’m too tough on kids and all that, you know, but I just don’t know what world they’re going to leave here and go in where you don’t have to be accountable and people are gonna pay ‘em.
“You know, right now they get their scholarship; they can transfer, I can’t get rid of ‘em. They can go be a free agent, they can get more money; I gotta pay ‘em, now the school’s gonna have to pay ‘em [through revenue sharing]. The collectives — this is literally like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ or something in a movie right now. And when they can’t play basketball — when they gotta play for a living, you better be damn good at it. You better be accountable or you’re gonna get cut. You’re gonna get fired from your job. So, I just figured I’d get ‘em ready. That’s my job, I care about ‘em.”
This was the 10th consecutive road game in a 12-game trip for Prairie View A&M, whose only victory came in its season opener on its home court over the College of Biblical Studies of Houston, an NCAA Division II school.
Beating UCLA would have been an upset of biblical proportions, with basketball analyst Ken Pomeroy giving the Bruins a 99.7% chance of winning. After falling into an early 18-point hole, the Panthers could dream when they rolled off a 10-0 run to cut their deficit to single digits midway through the first half.
But the Bruins were just too big, too physical, too tough. Prairie View A&M often had no choice but to foul, repeatedly sending UCLA to the free-throw line in the first half. The Bruins made 14 of 17 tries on the way to their 53-36 halftime advantage.
There was also no answer the Panthers could conjure for Mara, UCLA’s 7-foot-3 sophomore who showed the many ways he can affect the game in his five first-half minutes. Mara threw down a putback dunk, grabbed four rebounds and logged assists on passes to Skyy Clark and Andrews.
There was a moment to celebrate in the first half when Lazar Stefanovic made three free throws to surpass 1,000 points for his career, the milestone acknowledged with a graphic on the video board.
In just a few days, against a far more formidable foe, the Bruins can get back to chasing bigger goals.
