Erick Dailey Jr. scored a game-high 20 points along with eight rebounds and Skyy Clark added 13 points to help UCLA earn a 69-61 win over Ohio State on Sunday night at Pauley Pavillion.
UCLA improved to 20-8 overall and 11-6 in Big Ten conference play and have won nine of its last 11 games. The Bruins bounced back after suffering a tough loss against Minnesota last week.
Ohio State dropped to 19-6 overall, 9-5 in the Big Ten with the loss.
“It shows us that we can bounce back from adversity,” said Dailey Jr. “Adversity is a big word that comes and goes as the season flows. Things are going to happen that we don’t want to have happen, but it’s all about how you respond.”
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UCLA coach Mick Cronin earned his 500th win of his coaching career at the Division I level and became the youngest active coach to reach that accomplishment at 53 years old.
“It means I’m old; when you first start coaching, you don’t dream you’re going to be the coach at UCLA,” said Cronin, who has won 135 games with the Bruins after coaching at Cincinnati and Murray State.
The Bruins had four players to score in double figures, including Sebastian Mack, who had 11 points. Aday Mara added 10 points, nine rebounds and two blocks off the bench for UCLA. Kobe Johnson stuffed the stat sheet with a well-balanced 13 rebounds, four assists, three steals and one block despite only scoring three points.
UCLA also honored the late Bill Walton during the game and the players wore tie-dye shirts in pre-game warmups. Fellow Bruin legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also was in attendance to see the halftime ceremony for Walton.
“We understood what the day was, obviously. We were already coming off of a loss so we were motivated by that, and on top of that, we got to get Coach his 500th win,” said Clark. “It was Bill Walton Day today, so we knew how much this game meant, and you could just feel the energy all day. We were just keeping it going the whole game.”
Bruce Thornton had a team-high 21 points for Ohio State and Micah Parrish was the Buckeyes’ other double-figure scorer with 12 points.
UCLA led 28-24 at halftime and never gave up their lead in the second half.
The Bruins led by as many as 13 points late in the second half, 61-48, with 3:09 remaining after Clark made a layup. Thornton kept Ohio State alive after draining a midrange jumper to cut their deficit to 62-56 with 1:08 remaining.
Clark immediately responded by hitting a deep three-pointer with 41 seconds to play to go back up 65-56 and the Bruins went on to put the game away with a pair of free throws by Mack and Clark.
“All wins are good wins,” said UCLA coach Mick Cronin. “It’s late February [and] the way the game was called, it was tough to make a layup early on. We overcame the way the game was called today. We overcame a lot of adversity, in my opinion. We got lifts from different guys, obviously in the second half, Eric had the first nine points, which extended the lead for us. Our passing was better in the second half so our offense was better.”
The Bruins will next travel to face No. 20 Purdue (21-5, 11-4) on Friday, Feb. 28 at 5:00 p.m.
