{"id":531786,"date":"2026-01-21T08:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T08:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/531786\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T08:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T08:35:13","slug":"donovan-dent-tyler-bilodeau-lead-ucla-to-upset-of-no-4-purdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/531786\/","title":{"rendered":"Donovan Dent, Tyler Bilodeau lead UCLA to upset of No. 4 Purdue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UCLA coach Mick Cronin<\/a> had a talk with Donovan Dent<\/a> before the Bruins faced No. 4 Purdue.<\/p>\n

Cronin told Dent to quit being a bystander, get in the ring and throw some punches.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta perform, man,\u201d Cronin reminded Dent. \u201cYour team needs you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dent listened.<\/p>\n

He played his best basketball of the season, finishing with a double-double \u2014 23 points and 13 assists \u2014 including a key pass to Tyler Bilodeau with eight seconds left in the game. Bilodeau hit a clutch three-pointer, sealing the gutty Bruins\u2019<\/a> stunning 69-67 upset<\/a> of Purdue (17-2, 7-1) Tuesday night at Pauley Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Cronin spent much of the past month pleading with his team to play with greater intensity and consistency. UCLA (13-6, 5-3 Big Ten) delivered enough to earn a signature victory<\/a>, inspiring fans to flood the court after the final buzzer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still struggling to get the rebound,\u201d Cronin said.<\/p>\n

UCLA played five of its first seven Big Ten games on the road, including an ugly road loss to Ohio State on Saturday, prompting Cronin to thank the conference for dealing his team a scheduling hurdle. <\/p>\n

Cronin said two Hall of Fame coaches reached out to him and questioned why they were playing in Los Angeles after playing in Ohio a few days ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be much worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA guard Donovan Dent celebrates after scoring during a win over No. 4 Purdue on Tuesday at Pauley Pavilion.<\/p>\n

(Jae C. Hong \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The Bruins opened the game sluggishly, missing their first three shots, Trent Perry the only Bruin to score for the first 5\u00bd minutes as Bilodeau, Dent and Eric Dailey Jr. all missed shots.<\/p>\n

As the game progressed, the Bruins turned it on and built momentum, with Dent hitting a jumper at the buzzer to tie the score at 32 at halftime.<\/p>\n

The second half turned into a shootout, with the teams frequently trading the lead. Dent delivered the offensive spark Cronin tried to stoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the response he wanted right there,\u201d Dent said. \u201cBeing able to come back out and not back out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA fans storm the court after the team defeated No. 4 Purdue at Pauley Pavilion on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Jae C. Hong \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Purdue was nearly perfect from the free-throw line (six for seven), but turnovers in the final minutes helped seal the Boilermakers\u2019 first Big Ten loss of the season.<\/p>\n

Purdue led 67-61 with 1:56 left. Dent hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit, then Trent Perry stole a bad pass by Purdue\u2019s Braden Smith. Dailey hit a layup to cut the Bruins\u2019 deficit to one point with 1:05 remaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank the fans, first off, because they brought the energy that we needed to play with,\u201d said Dailey, who finished the game with 12 points and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n

After a Boilermakers timeout, Purdue\u2019s Smith threw the ball away and UCLA called a timeout to set up its offense. Dent received the inbound pass, found Bilodeau on the perimeter and he nailed a three-pointer to give the Bruins a 69-67 lead with eight seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA forward Tyler Bilodeau fires up the crowd after the Bruins defeated No. 4 Purdue on Tuesday at Pauley Pavilion.<\/p>\n

(Jae C. Hong \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hyped up,\u201d Bilodeau said after hitting the shot.<\/p>\n

UCLA took another timeout to set up its defense. Purdue\u2019s C.J. Cox missed a 26-foot three-pointer and Xavier Booker grabbed the defensive board at the buzzer to seal the Bruins\u2019 biggest win of the season.<\/p>\n

The victory was a team effort, with Bilodeau finishing with 14 points. Booker had nine points, four rebounds and three blocks. During the past six weeks, the Bruins hadn\u2019t earned more than six blocks in a game, but they finished with eight against Purdue.<\/p>\n

After losing three of the last five games, Cronin said he couldn\u2019t give all his players individual pep talks and instead shared his goals with the whole team.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cYou think they have one-on-one meetings in the Marines and basic training and SEAL training?\u201d Cronin asked.<\/p>\n

Cronin was asked whether he was satisfied with his team\u2019s effort and would have been content if the Bruins missed their last shot and failed to capture the big upset. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d have been pleased if Tyler missed the shot and we lost,\u201d Cronin responded. \u201cI just want us to fight. I thought we fought.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA coach Mick Cronin had a talk with Donovan Dent before the Bruins faced No. 4 Purdue. Cronin…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":531787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[20698,49477,34505,32072,1582,276,20009,230690,2961,224,5337,471,449,15189,5950,235694,3007,235695,176278,2501],"class_list":{"0":"post-531786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ball","9":"tag-boilermakers","10":"tag-braden-smith","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-deficit","15":"tag-donovan-dent","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-no","20":"tag-point","21":"tag-purdue","22":"tag-season","23":"tag-stunning-upset","24":"tag-team","25":"tag-timeout","26":"tag-tyler-bilodeau","27":"tag-ucla"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115932176520890709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531786","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=531786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}