LOS ANGELES — UCLA men’s basketball moved to 12-0 at home this season with a 76-52 Pac-12 Conference win over Washington State at home Saturday afternoon.
Jaime Jaquez Jr. notched his second consecutive double-double and fifth this season with 24 points and a career-high 15 rebounds in 33 minutes and Jaylen Clark added 12 points and five rebounds. The Bruins scored 19 points off 15 turnovers while turning it over just 10 times themselves, which is a significant improvement from the season-high 18 turnovers in Thursday’s win over Washington.
“Tremendous team spirit today, I was really proud of the guys with their attitude today. They were ready to go,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said.
UCLA will enter next week in sole possession of first place in the Pac-12 ahead of its trip to Oregon where coach Cronin has yet to win during his time in Westwood.
“We took the pressure off ourselves today,” Jaquez said. “We tuned out all the outside noise and focused on what we needed to do.”
UCLA used a 17-3 run that helped create the team’s largest lead of the game at 61-40 with 8:09 to play that helped to complete a regular-season sweep over the Washington schools and makes the ninth-ranked Bruins 38-2 in Pauley Pavilion since the 2020-21 season.
Washington State (10-15, 5-9 Pac-12) made six of its first nine shots of the game, including three 3s, but the Bruins (19-4, 10-2) turned the Cougars over eight times in the opening six minutes while UCLA went on a 9-0 run to a 22-15 lead. Campbell found David Singleton in the corner for an open 3-pointer to put UCLA up 30-20 at the 4:45-mark.
The Cougars used a couple baskets to close the gap to within five, but a Jaquez 3-pointer and Bona dunk created another double-digit Bruin lead (35-25) before taking a 35-26 advantage into halftime.
“Our ball pressure was a big catalyst,” Cronin said of the Bruins’ defense. “We put Tyger Campbell on their shooter (Jabe Mullens) and had Amari Bailey pressure the ball….
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