2/8/2003

The hard-luck Hoyas’ heartache continued Saturday when they fell by a single point to the Bruins of UCLA in a non-conference match-up on CBS. Gerald Riley paced all scorers with 20 points before fouling out. Brandon Bowman added 13 tallies and Drew Hall contributed 10, including a trey from Sweetney with 00:36 remaining in the game. Mike Sweetney in spite of severely  limited playing time due to whistles, also scored 10 points and led all rebounders with 9 boards, just missing his 32^nd double-double.

Three quick fouls on Sweetney limited the Hoyas’ leading scorer to 11 minutes of playing time in the opening half.  Although Riley and Tony Bethel attempted to pick up the scoring slack, the Hoyas, already missing Center Wesley Wilson (temporary leave of absence) were outrebounded 22-18. The Bruins also hit 48.1% of their shots as compared to 31.4% for the Hoyas. At intermission the Hoyas trailed by 6, 38-32.

In the second half the Hoyas improved their shooting accuracy while also tightening up their defense. GU hit 44.4% of their shots while limiting the Bruins to 34.8%. There were 7 lead changes, and 5 ties. A foul call in the final 4.5 seconds put the Bruins on the line, allowing them to move from one down to one up on the Hoyas. Drew Hall’s long 3 point attempt for the win was unsuccessful.

For the game the Hoyas hit 8 of 18 treys, 16 of 18 free throws, made 12 turnovers and pulled down 37 rebounds. UCLA also grabbed 37 boards, had 13 turnovers and hit 25 of 34 from the stripe.