Kanaan Carlyle came off the bench for game highs of 17 points and four assists as Stanford sent UCLA to its third consecutive home loss with a 59-53 decision on Wednesday in Los Angeles.
The Cardinal (7-6, 2-1 Pac-12) came into the contest with an 0-4 record away from home on the season. A stout defensive effort after digging a 10-0 hole to start the game, however, helped end Stanford’s road woes and extend UCLA’s home struggles.
The Bruins (6-8, 1-2) had won 29 straight at Pauley Pavilion before a Dec. 19 loss to Cal State Northridge. On Wednesday, a 19-of-58 shooting performance (32.8 percent) from the floor doomed UCLA to its sixth loss in the past seven games overall.
After opening the game 8-for-9 on field-goal attempts, the Bruins hit just 11 of 49 (22.4 percent) the rest of the way.
The Bruins jumped ahead early, effectively attacking the interior for 18 first-half points in the paint.
UCLA scored just four points in the paint in the second half and struggled to find much offense at all. The Bruins endured a 12-minute stretch from the end of the first half into the mid-second half in which they made only one field goal.
UCLA finished 3-for-13 from 3-point range, with two of the successful treys coming from Sebastian Mack in the final 17 seconds. Mack led three Bruins scoring in double figures with 14 points.
Berke Buyuktuncel and Adem Bona added 13 and 12, respectively, but no other UCLA player scored more than four points.
After making 16 of 25 3-point attempts in its win over then-No. 4 Arizona on Sunday, Stanford missed its first five attempts from beyond the arc on Wednesday. The Cardinal were just 2-for-10 from outside in the first half, but they successfully whittled the gap to four points by intermission.
In the second half, a 9-0 run featuring a pair of Carlyle 3-pointers book-ending one from Andrej Stojakovic gave Stanford a lead it never relinquished. The Cardinal expanded the gap to as many as 11 points down the stretch.
Stojakovic scored nine points for the Cardinal and Maxime Raynaud scored six of his eight points in the second half. Raynaud matched Bona with a game-high nine rebounds.
–Field Level Media