82-72 setback<\/a> against No. 8 Gonzaga on Saturday night at Climate Pledge Arena in the West Coast Hoops Showdown, the Bruins faltering late in their final bid to secure a signature nonconference triumph.<\/p>\nThe Bruins were overmatched inside, the Bulldogs frontcourt tandem of Graham Ike (25 points) and Braden Huff (21 points) finding success at the rim far too often. It also didn\u2019t help that UCLA\u2019s late-game execution was once again pitiful, point guard Donovan Dent doing too little once he reached the rim thanks to a flurry of missed layups and bad passes.<\/p>\n
UCLA (7-3) lost despite shooting 49% in part because the Bulldogs (10-1) shot 50%, took 13 more free throws and grabbed seven more rebounds. Bilodeau\u2019s 24 points were nothing more than a footnote.<\/p>\n
![\"Gonzaga](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765704259_338_\")
<\/p>\n
Gonzaga guard Jalen Warley, right, drives as UCLA forward Xavier Booker defends him during the first half Saturday.<\/p>\n
(Jason Redmond \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Early in the second half, there had been one stretch that seemed to portend a different ending.<\/p>\n
A faint \u201cU-C-L-A!\u201d chant broke out among the heavily pro-Gonzaga crowd after the Bruins went on a 9-0 run sparked by defense.<\/p>\n
A Dent steal led to a Brandon Williams layup in transition, an Eric Dailey Jr. steal allowed him to throw down a reverse dunk on the fast break and then a Bilodeau block resulted in a Dent layup in transition.<\/p>\n
The Bruins were suddenly up by a point and their defensive woes from earlier in the game were momentarily forgotten.<\/p>\n
But soon Bilodeau picked up his third foul and departed, leading to a Gonzaga push in which the Bulldogs outscored the Bruins 10-4 to retake control.<\/p>\n
This was a game that UCLA needed to win as an NCAA tournament resume builder given a previous lack of meaningful victories and a relatively bad loss to California. The Bruins\u2019 remaining nonconference games \u2014 against Arizona State, Cal Poly and UC Riverside \u2014 can do little to boost their prospects, meaning they will need an elite showing in Big Ten play to earn a good seeding come March.<\/p>\n
UCLA went back to an old look in the last few possessions before halftime, putting Bilodeau at center. There seemed like little choice given starting center Xavier Booker\u2019s inability to protect the rim and backup Steven Jamerson\u2019s three fouls that sent him back to the bench.<\/p>\n
Bilodeau compounded matters by committing a bad foul near midcourt with only four seconds left before halftime, sending Gonzaga\u2019s Mario Saint-Supery to the free-throw line for the points that gave the Bulldogs a 45-40 lead at the game\u2019s midpoint.<\/p>\n
Defensive struggles were the big storyline for the Bruins given they trailed despite shooting 57.1% and making five of eight three-pointers (62.5%). Gonzaga\u2019s lead came as a result of shooting 58.1% and committing just three turnovers.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly given how little resistance UCLA put up around the rim, Bulldogs forwards Ike and Huff combined for 29 points while making 12 of 14 shots in the first half. Ike had the crowd roaring when he drove for a ferocious one-handed dunk over Booker in which he was fouled.<\/p>\n
Bilodeau had 16 points by the game\u2019s midpoint but did not receive nearly enough support.<\/p>\n
It was a theme that would continue for the rest of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0They tried going back to the zone defense. They tried moving Tyler Bilodeau back to center. Nothing the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":446173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[205394,205397,51014,1582,276,89066,1910,22881,190979,78357,205393,2961,5617,224,5337,5948,449,205395,8800,205396],"class_list":{"0":"post-446172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bilodeau","9":"tag-braden-huff","10":"tag-bulldogs","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-foul","14":"tag-game","15":"tag-gonzaga","16":"tag-graham-ike","17":"tag-halftime","18":"tag-hand-ucla","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-layup","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-loss","24":"tag-point","25":"tag-rim-protection","26":"tag-ucla-bruins","27":"tag-zone-defense"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115717201559649889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}