CHICAGO — His best shooter had already been ruled out. Then, midway through the first half, his star point guard left for the locker room.
It was the kind of worst-case scenario in the lead-up to March that UCLA coach Mick Cronin had probably only considered in his nightmares. But here was Tyler Bilodeau, UCLA’s leading scorer, dressed in an all-black sweatsuit on the bench, and here was Donovan Dent, the Bruins’ ascending senior point guard, slumped in his chair a few seats down, a sleeve wrapped around his injured leg.
Both Bilodeau and Dent should be OK by next week, a school spokesperson said, when UCLA is expected to draw a seventh or eighth seed in the NCAA tournament. Bilodeau’s injury was a minor knee sprain suffered in the win over Michigan State on Friday, while Dent suffered a minor calf strain. In a pinch, Cronin said the pair could have played. Dent even said after that he was “feeling good.”
Cronin ultimately opted to hold them out as a precaution, knowing a Big Ten tournament title only meant so much. The loss of both ultimately proved too much for the Bruins to overcome in a 73-66 loss to Purdue.
It didn’t feel like a fair fight at first after halftime, when guard Fletcher Loyer pushed Purdue’s lead to 13 with back-to-back three-pointers. But the Bruins refused to back down. Slowly but surely, they climbed back. By the six-minute mark, Skyy Clark stole a pass for a breakaway lay-in, then made a corner three on the next possession, cutting the Boilermakers’ lead to two points.
“He can score at will when he wants to score,” Dent said of Clark. “And when he’s in that zone, it’s very hard for teams to guard us. We need him in that zone the whole rest of March.”
UCLA’s Trent Perry, right, and Steven Jamerson II, left, battle Purdue’s Jack Benter for a rebound during their Big Ten Conference semifinal game Saturday.
(Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
It would take more than just Clark’s clutchness to catch up. Sophomore guard Trent Perry pulled up from midrange soon after to tie the score at 60.
At one point, as UCLA continued threatening Purdue’s late lead, Cronin wondered how he might field a team for Sunday, had the Bruins managed to dispatch their semifinal opponent.
But they could never quite pull into the lead. With every swing from UCLA, Purdue punched back harder. Purdue’s 6-foot-11 center, Oscar Cluff, proved too much for the shorthanded Bruins down low. The combined size of Cluff, who scored 17, and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn made matters difficult on the glass, where Purdue piled up 37 rebounds to UCLA’s 26.
Cluff and Kaufman-Renn combined for 24 boards, while the combination of Xavier Booker and Steven Jamerson II that Cronin used at center only grabbed two.
“That’s where we got outplayed,” Cronin said.
It’s also where UCLA missed Bilodeau, its second-leading rebounder, the most.
“Tyler would have had a hand in that,” said Purdue coach Matt Painter. “He’s had some monster games for them this year.”
Losing Dent after that only made matters more difficult for a team that had grown accustomed to his extraordinary playmaking over the past month. Across two Big Ten tournament games, Dent had accumulated 35 points, 24 assists and 12 rebounds.
Purdue had done a better job neutralizing the Bruins’ dynamic point guard than UCLA’s previous two opponents, having held him to only two points in 10 minutes. Then, at the 9:36 mark in the first half, Dent said he stepped awkwardly and felt some pain. Team doctors “didn’t like how it was looking.”
“Donny, he makes everything happen for us,” Clark said. “But we have a lot of dudes who can do a lot of stuff.”
That was what Cronin was hoping for Saturday. It would take a while for those other players to kick into gear. Not even four minutes into the game, UCLA had already dug itself a 15-2 hole, while Purdue had already caught fire, hitting three of its first four attempts from three-point range.
The Bruins eventually settled in, and the Boilermakers cooled down. Purdue missed their next nine shots and went scoreless for six minutes. UCLA climbed all the way back in a hurry, tying the score at 17. In the process, it lost Dent, who returned several minutes later wearing a white sleeve on his right leg.
Instead of pushing the issue, Cronin put his trust in the rest of his rotation. Clark had eight of his 10 points in the second half. Guard Eric Freeny added eight of his own, while Xavier Booker came up big in the second half with seven points. Eric Dailey Jr., meanwhile, reeled in seven second-half rebounds to finish with 10 while scoring 11 points.
It wasn’t enough. While UCLA lost both of its stars briefly Saturday — and ultimately lost the game — it leaves Chicago with its confidence swelling, nonetheless.
“We just proved we can compete with anybody,” Clark said. “We’re missing arguably two of our best players, and we’re still running game with them.
“We grew up a lot this weekend. We’re gonna carry that into March.”
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