Westwood, CA – Coming off of their dominating win over Arizona, the No. 7 UCLA Bruins (15-2, 7-1 Pac-12) kept that same energy against the UC Berkeley Golden Bears (9-11, 2-7, Pac-12) with another dominating win 81-57 on Thursday evening.
Cal tried their best to make it competitive but didn’t stand a chance against the number seven ranked team in the nation.
“It was a collective group mentality that we bring it this game,” said UCLA guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. “It could be easy after a game like Arizona, big crowd and everyone cheering to just roll over and try to play this one. But we didn’t do that. We came out with intensity and the same fire that we had before and we just tried to keep that throughout the game.”
Out of the ten available UCLA players who played, eight players scored at least two points and two rebounds.
UCLA head coach Mick Cronin commented on his team sharing the ball.
“When we pass the ball, we’re really good.”
The Bruins went on a heist and hustled for 14 steals. This set a record for the most steals that Cronin has had since being the UCLA coach.
“The deflections and our defense have gotten exponentially better lately because we’ve been averaging 36 deflections a game and tonight we had 40 and 22 at the half, which always is going to equal steals. We didn’t have many blocks like the other night, but the fourteen steals helped break them trying to disrupt Cal’s offense.” said Cronin.
UCLA’s largest lead was 26 points 75-49 at the 3:32 mark in the second half.
David Singleton made his first start of the season filling in for Johnny Juzang. Juzang was out due to COVID protocols.
“He’s fine, he’s highly disappointed. It was terrible for him but great for Jake and David. Very, very happy for both of those guys,” said Cronin.
Jaylen Clark was also ruled out due to a concussion. UCLA takes on the Stanford Cardinals at home on Saturday, January 29th at 6:30 p.m.
