Ucla Tops UW For Sweep Scores Final Eight Points To Escape With 78-70 Win

When it counted in the final minute, UCLA was still UCLA. And once again, that proved too much for Washington.

“I thought we played really well down the stretch,” Bruins coach Jim Harrick said, after watching his team score the final eight points in the final minute for a 78-70 victory over the Huskies in a Pacific-10 Conference game Saturday night.

Toby Bailey, J.R. Henderson and Charles O’Bannon each sank two free throws and O’Bannon added a dunk as the Bruins completed a successful league-opening weekend. UCLA beat Washington State in overtime Thursday night.

“We felt we could pull it out if we were close,” Henderson said.

“If we’re close in the last couple of minutes, we know we’ve got a good chance of winning,” Bailey said.

The Bruins (9-3 overall, 2-0 Pac-10) went ahead on Bailey’s free throws with 52.4 seconds left, made it 74-70 on Henderson’s free throws with 32.6 seconds to go and then secured their victory on O’Bannon’s free throws with 17.6 seconds remaining.

O’Bannon had a reverse slam with 6 seconds to go as the Bruins returned to Seattle for the first time since winning the NCAA championship last year.

After Bailey’s free throws, Jason Hamilton tried an alley-oop pass to Mark Sanford, but the pass was too high and went out of bounds. That seemed to deflate the Huskies, who lost to the Bruins for the sixth straight time and for the 17th time in 19 games.

A noisy and enthusiastic sellout crowd of 7,900 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion left into the rainy night unhappy.

“It’s great to see the fans walk out of here while the game is still going on,” O’Bannon said.

Washington (8-3, 1-1), which had a five-game winning streak broken, was in the game until the final minute despite shooting only 3-for-21 from 3-point range.

Henderson led UCLA with 22 points and Bailey added 18. For the Huskies, Sanford scored 20 and Bryant Boston had 19.

The Bruins shot 63 percent from the field (30 for 48) and got 10 rebounds from freshman center Jelani McCoy.

Henderson made a 6-foot bank shot with 2:28 to go for UCLA before Sanford tied the score at 70 with a free throw with 1:48 left.

Bailey put UCLA in front with a fast-break 10-footer with 4-1/2 minutes left, but Boston sank a 6-footer on a drive and Patrick Femmerling, Washington’s 7-foot-2 freshman from Germany, made a dunk off Hamilton’s pass with 2:58 left for a 69-68 UW lead.

The Huskies led 42-40 at halftime after being in front by nine points three times in the first half, the last at 30-21 with 8:12 to go.

UCLA 78, Washington 70

UCLA (9-3) - O’Bannon 4-8 2-2 10, Henderson 8-12 6-7 22, McCoy 4-6 4-4 12, Bailey 7-12 3-3 18, Johnson 4-7 0-0 8, Givens 2-2 2-2 6, Dollar 1-1 0-1 2, Loyd 0-0 0-0 0, Dempsey 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-48 17-19 78.

Washington (8-3) - Sanford 8-14 3-5 20, MacCulloch 3-4 2-3 8, Hamilton 2-9 1-2 6, Boston 9-21 0-0 19, Booker 3-8 0-0 6, Femerling 3-4 1-4 7, Watts 1-1 0-0 2, Lopez 1-1 0-0 2, Hartman 0-4 0-0 0, Amos 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-67 7-14 70.

Halftime-Washington 42, UCLA 40. 3-Point goals-UCLA 1-4 (Bailey 1-4), Washington 3-21 (Sanford 1-4, Hamilton 1-4, Boston 1-8, Booker 0-2, Hartman 0-3). Fouled out-None. Rebounds-UCLA 34 (McCoy 10), Washington 23 (MacCullouch, Booker, Femerling 4), Assists-UCLA 11 (O’Bannon, Henderson, Dollar 3), Washington 12 (Boston 4). Total fouls- UCLA 16, Washington 20. Technical-UCLA bench. A-7,900.