UCLA Men's Basketball Upset By Oregon in Overtime, Missed Free Throws and 3s Cost Bruins

Down six with less than a minute to go, the Bruins looked dead in the water, bound to lose their first game in nearly two months.

But they weren't dead yet, even if that's where they ended up by the end of the night.

Following a string of free throws by guard Tyger Campbell and Johnny Juzang, No. 3 UCLA men's basketball (10-2, 2-1 Pac-12) found itself down just two points to Oregon (10-6, 3-2) with 20 seconds left on the clock. The Ducks inbounded the ball to the corner, and a touch pass back to the center got picked off by none other than guard Jaylen Clark.

Clark went right up with it, tying the game at 73 apiece, then Campbell got the stop on the other end to somehow force overtime less than a minute after all hope seemed lost.

The teams combined to hit their first seven shots of overtime, with the Ducks settling in up 81-79 for over two minutes. Guard/forward Jaime Jaquez had a chance to tie it up with a pair of free throws, but he missed both and put the Bruins in a hole they couldn't dig out of.

Juzang got a look at an open 3-pointer that would have tied it up with four seconds to play, and Bernard got another try at the buzzer, but both shots came up short and UCLA fell to Oregon 84-81.

By the time the clock hit zero, coach Mick Cronin said the Bruins got the result they deserved.

"We’re arrogant without cause," Cronin said. "In this game, if you don’t play hard the game treats you the way it should, usually. Even if we had won, I’d have felt the same way."

From the get go, with no fans in the stands outside of family members due to new COVID-19 policies in Westwood, the Bruins were in a position to get upset, and that's exactly what ended up happening by the time the final buzzer sounded.

Early foul trouble in the opening minute cost UCLA forward Cody Riley for long stretches throughout the night, but it was their streaky shooting that really caused problems in the first half.

The Bruins started 0-of-4, hit five in a row, then missed seven in a row. Even after Campbell ended that cold stretch with a much-needed 3-pointer, the Bruins still only hit two of their next seven attempts from the field.

Three consecutive buckets and a few free throws helped UCLA go on a 9-0 run, but the Bruins let the Ducks back into things when they finished the half 1-of-4.

Luckily for UCLA, Oregon was just as streaky in the opening half – the Ducks had stretches during which they missed nine, five and four shots in a row, and they never hit three or more in a row. Helped somewhat by a goofy second-chance score off a full-court heave offensive rebound at the buzzer, Oregon went into the break shooting just 30.3%.

Part of that had to do with UCLA blocking shots, with center Myles Johnson and guard/forward Peyton Watson leading the way with two apiece. With the Bruins up 35-30 at halftime, Oregon was on pace for just 60 points, its fewest since the 1-2 trip to the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving break.

The Ducks came out a completely different team in the second half, though, hitting their first five shots – four of which were 3-pointers – as well as a couple free throws. All of a sudden, UCLA was down by nine after being up by eight midway through the first half.

That was despite the Bruins spending extra time in the locker room during halftime, and they only made it out of the tunnel with 90 seconds until play resumed. Cronin said he was teaching his players how to pass, but he ended up disappointed in their defensive performance coming out of the elongated, intense meeting.

"To come out in the second half and have four deflections and give up 52% and 62% in overtime is just an abomination," Cronin said. "It’s embarrassing."

A 3-pointer by Watson – who was just 1-of-12 from long range on the season entering Thursday – and back-to-back scores by Juzang and Clark made it a two-point game again, but it was hard for the Bruins to dig themselves out of their 1-of-7 shooting to start the second half.

Campbell finally got UCLA back into it with a go-ahead 3-pointer, and after Oregon answered on the other end, Johnson had an and-1 he failed to convert. The Ducks followed that up with a 3-pointer of their own, then stole the inbounds pass to extend their new lead.

The teams continued to back-and-forth for the next chunk of the contest, with four lead changes and a tie between the 12-minute mark and 9-minute mark. The Ducks held strong for a while, though, continuing to answer all of the Bruins' blows and head into the final media timeout up 68-63.

After UCLA limited Oregon to 30 points in the entire first half, the Ducks passed that just over halfway through the second half.

The Bruins, on the other hand, had their streaky shooting come back to haunt them – after going 10-of-17 from the field between Watson's big 3 and his layup 10 minutes later, UCLA missed five straight shots in crunch time while Oregon surged ahead.

"Didn’t play defense, didn’t take care of the ball, didn’t share the ball," Cronin said. "But even when we started sharing the ball, then all of a sudden, we started taking terrible shots again."

A floater by Riley ended that streak, but the Bruins had still gone 4:33 without a made field goal in a tight conference game. With Oregon leading 71-67 in the final minute, UCLA got a much-needed stop, only for Bernard to get called for a loose ball foul when guard Will Richardson went over his back. Richardson hit both his free throws and made it a six-point game with 44 seconds left.

That's when Juzang and Campbell each hit a pair of free throws, setting up Clark for his game-tying steal and layup with 11 seconds left.

The Bruins got to overtime and made it a real contest all without much from Jaquez, who had a team-worst -17 plus/minus, a team-high four turnovers and a season-low four points, excluding when he left with an injury in the first half against Colorado.

Oregon won the points-off-turnovers battle by six in a game that ended up being decided by three, so UCLA's 13 turnovers certainly proved costly.

"Close games like that, against good teams, you can’t have any mistakes," Juzang said. "And we had a lot."

Five Bruins finished in double figures, with Juzang leading the way with 23, while six Ducks broke 10, led by guard Jacob Young's 23.

"There’s a reason certain teams always win – they find a way, they compete," Cronin said. "You start thinking you’re going to win because people tell you you’ve got this guy or you guys are really good, it’s got nothing to do with it. You’ve got to physically compete."

UCLA will have a chance to rebound from the upset when Oregon State comes to Pauley Pavilion on Saturday, with that game set to tip off at 7:30 p.m.

"Obviously, we have to learn from our mistakes this game and we’re not done," Bernard said. "We played poorly today and it’s past us. We’re definitely going to study and realize what we did wrong this game and come into Saturday with our heads high."

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