UCLA basketball suffered its fourth straight loss at the hands of Washington State basketball on Sunday. Despite leading by as much as 13 points, the Bruins had no answer for Jaylen Wells and the Cougars, who used a 22-7 run in the second half to notch the comeback win. Following the game, UCLA head coach Mick Cronin was less than pleased about his team's effort.
“Our frontline has to be better on the glass,” Cronin said, per uclabruins.com “You get in games like this against a top-20 team on the road. All of our great effort, all your great defensive effort goes for naught if you can't control the defensive backboard…That was the difference in the game. If you can't control your defensive backboard, it negates all of your effort, hustle and good defense. It's just demoralizing. That's our biggest problem. That's what got us beat, without question.”
As a team, UCLA basketball was outrebounded by Washington State, 39-24. Besides the issue on the boards, UCLA had difficulty stopping Jaylen Wells, who scored 27 points for the Cougars. The Washington State forward sank three triples and made all 10 of his attempts from the charity stripe.
UCLA's season has been a roller coaster of up and down runs. They held a 6-10 record at one point, but managed to win eight out of their next nine games to put themselves at 14-11. Unfortunately, the four-game skid started, culminating in Sunday's loss. Presently, the team is 14-15 overall, with a 9-9 Pac-12 record.
Mick Cronin and his squad will square off against Arizona on Thursday and Arizona State on Saturday to conclude their regular season.