LOS ANGELES (AP) - UCLA coach Steve Alford showed up at his postgame news conference Sunday night without a jacket. He said he removed it at halftime while dressing down his team for a poor first-half effort.
“He just let us know that offensively, we had to get better ball movement and get better shots,” Kyle Anderson said. “In the first half, we shot the ball too quickly. We did a better job in the second half.”
Jordan Adams scored 20 of his 24 points after halftime, Anderson added 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals, and UCLA rallied from an 11-point deficit to beat Oregon State 74-69 Sunday night to snap its only two-game losing streak of the season.
“It was a very interesting halftime. I was not happy with our effort at all in the first half,” Alford said, and understandably so. After taking a 19-14 lead, the Bruins went cold, settling mostly for jump shots and seldom connecting.
With Roberto Nelson scoring nine points and Devon Collier adding six, the Beavers went on a 24-10 run to finish the half for a 38-29 lead.
“Our effort was much better in the second half, and that’s what made the difference,” Alford said. “We got 11 steals, had nine in the transition game, got to the free throw line, ran a better offense.”
While outscoring the Beavers 45-31 in the second half, the Bruins committed only one turnover to give them a total of just six overall while Oregon State committed 10 of its 16 turnovers.
By winning, the Bruins (22-7, 11-5 Pac-12) kept Oregon State from sweeping them for the first time since 1988. UCLA leads the series 90-36 and is 51-7 against the Beavers in Los Angeles.
Adams and Anderson returned to action after being suspended for Thursday night’s 87-83 double-overtime loss to Oregon for an undisclosed violation of team rules.
Without prompting, Adams apologized to the fans, his teammates and coaching staff “for our issues.”
“I’m just proud how our guys came out and competed,” he said. “It was a learning experience. I’m glad our team fought, which showed a lot about their character.”
Nelson, the Pac-12’s leading scorer, led the Beavers (15-13, 7-9) with 23 points. Collier added 15 points and Eric Moreland had 13 rebounds to lead Oregon State to a 36-31 advantage on the boards.
Oregon State beat UCLA 71-67 in Corvallis four weeks ago.
The Bruins trailed 42-31 early in the second half when they suddenly came alive, outscoring the Beavers 21-6 for a 52-48 lead, and they were on top the rest of the way. A 3-pointer by Adams with 7:19 left made it 59-53, and the Beavers weren’t closer than four points after that. Two foul shots by Bryce Alford and another pair by Anderson made it 67-58 with 58.9 seconds left.
The Bruins shot 40.7 percent from the floor but made 21 of 23 free throws. The Beavers shot 47.1 percent but were just 14 of 23 from the foul line.
“The difference tonight was our turnovers and points off turnovers,” Oregon State coach Craig Robinson said. “I thought we defended well. But between the 50-50 balls we did not get and our turnovers and the missed foul shots, this game was an opportunity lost.”
Bryce Alford, coming off a career-high 31-point outing against Oregon, missed all four shots he attempted in the first half. He finished 1 of 5 and scored six points. The 31 points is the second-most ever scored by a UCLA freshman, behind the 41 points scored by Don MacLean against North Texas 25 years ago.
UCLA completed its home schedule with a 16-2 record. The Bruins’ three seniors - starters David and Travis Wear and seldom-used reserve Aubrey Williams - were honored beforehand. The Bruins finish the regular season this week at Washington and Washington State while the Beavers finish at home against No. 3 Arizona and Arizona State.
Arizona (27-2, 14-2) clinched the Pac-12 regular-season championship by beating Stanford 79-66 earlier Sunday.
Former UCLA center Swen Nater sang the Star Spangled Banner before the game. Nater and other members of UCLA’s 1973 NCAA championship team, including Bill Walton and Jamaal Wilkes, were honored at halftime.
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