LOS ANGELES — UCLA stepped up its defensive intensity and squashed Stanford.
Darren Collison, Alfred Aboya and Jrue Holiday all scored 15 points and the 17th-ranked Bruins used a 40-14 run over both halves to put away the Cardinal 97-63 on Saturday.
Holiday added six rebounds and five assists for the Bruins (17-4, 7-2 Pac-10), while Michael Roll had 12 points and Josh Shipp 11 in UCLA’s fifth consecutive win over the Cardinal, including a three-game sweep last season in which all the games were decided by 10 points or less.
This time, the result was the Bruins’ highest-scoring Pac-10 game in coach Ben Howland’s six seasons. Conversely, the 34-point loss was Stanford’s worst at Pauley Pavilion since a 101-64 defeat on Feb. 2, 1978.
Anthony Goods was the only scorer in double figures with 15 points for Stanford (13-6, 3-6), which got swept in Los Angeles. The Cardinal was coming off its third one-point loss of the season at Southern California on Thursday.
“We got off to a slow start,” first-year Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “Give them credit, they had something to do with that. Usually you can find positives. We didn’t play well in any category.”
This one wasn’t close after Stanford tied the game at 20 on a 3-pointer by Goods with 9:26 remaining in the first half.
From there, UCLA ran the Cardinal out of Westwood.
The Bruins outscored Stanford 40-14 over the end of the first half and start of the second, with Aboya and Holiday scoring 11 points each during that stretch.
UCLA reeled off 19 consecutive points before another 3-pointer by Goods ended the scoring spree with the Bruins leading 62-37 with 14 minutes remaining. They shot 63 percent from the field — their best in a Pac-10 game so far.
“They were scoring off turnovers and they were forcing turnovers,” Goods said. “We’re not defending. It’s no secret. We got to dig down deep and have pride on the defensive end.”
That’s what the Bruins decided coming into this week, having lost two of three.
“It’s starting on the defensive end. We wanted to raise our level of intensity on the ball,” Collison said. “We’ve been wanting to push it all year long. We have the weapons and the talent. Now we’re getting stops and easy baskets.”
UCLA forced 19 turnovers against Stanford and 21 in an 81-66 victory over California on Thursday, giving them 40 in the two games.
The Bruins outscored both opponents by 49 points; the last time they thumped two conference rivals in the same weekend by a larger combined score was last season when they beat Arizona State and Arizona by 55 points.
“Everybody thinks we’re gelling all of a sudden,” Collison said. “We lose games, it’s like somebody died.”
Howland knows why that feeling prevails.
“There’s so much expectation heaped on their shoulders,” he said. “They handled that adversity and bounced back.”
The rout provided some much-needed rest for UCLA’s starters, especially Collison, who bowed out with 6:53 remaining after logging at least 30 minutes in his last four games.
The Bruins shot a season-high 73 percent from 3-point range, helped by Roll, who made all three of his shots, and Nikola Dragovic, who was 3-of-4.
UCLA’s national championship teams from 1964 and 1965 were introduced at halftime, with the longest and loudest applause reserved for John Wooden. The 98-year-old former coach came on court in a wheelchair and got a laugh when he said, “It’s still amazing that I can remember, but I do.”
The coaching staffs of both teams wore white sneakers with their suits and ties to mark Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers Awareness Weekend.
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