Bruins Senior Has Incredible Defensive Performance In Friday's Win

The UCLA Bruins saw their senior transfer leader, Kobe Johnson, lead the team in multiple categories on Friday night in a dominant win over Cal State Fullerton at home. His best attribute was his defensive play, recording six steals.

Nov 22, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin talks to UCLA Bruins guard Kobe Johnson (0) during the second half against the Cal State Fullerton Titans at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images / Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images

The UCLA Bruins (5-1) received their best performance of the year from senior guard Kobe Johnson in a dominant win over Cal State Fullerton. He led the team in several categories in the win and thrived on the defensive end. He had a team-high in points (12), rebounds (six), assists (five) and steals (six).

Johnson was asked about his defensive presence and the improvements that he had made over the first six games of the season. Six steals in one game is hard to come by no matter who the opponent is.

"Just being in the gaps, being aggressive, going for steals, reading the other team's eyes and what they're about to do," Johnson said postgame. "I think that helped me get a lot of deflections, which led to a lot of steals."

One of Johnson's flaws in the early going was foul trouble that had kept him off the floor in prior contests. He did not record a foul and played 33 minutes on Friday night. Coach Mick Cronin has spoken to Johnson prior to the season about the importance of defending without fouling.

"Just learning when people are driving on me not to just put my hands on because I had a habit of doing that," Johnson said. "That caused me to get a lot of fouls, but just playing with my hands up, making sure the ref can see both hands because Coach [Cronin] has been telling me throughout the whole year, I can't get too early fouls and be sitting on the bench the entire time. So, I just got to be smart and play without fouling."

Johnson impacted the game in almost every single aspect, including dishing the rock and finding a handful of assists. One of those assists came on a bounce pass in the paint to 7-3 center Aday Mara, who finished with 10 points. Johnson spoke on how fun it is to have a guy of Mara's size to pass to.

"Hella fun, there's a lot of passes that you can throw that you can't really throw to many other people," Johnson said. "You can throw them in spots to where only he [Mara] can catch it. So it's definitely fun to have a big fella like that out there and he's just going to keep on getting stronger and better each and everyday. Got to keep having him come out playing strong."

The only flaw of the Bruins' performance was their defensive rebounding. They allowed the Titans to grab 13 offensive rebounds which should not happen against a much smaller team. They have progressed since the first few games, but there is still room to improve and Johnson knows that.

"It's progressing better, we can always get better," Johnson said. "I think today was a good example of us being able to get better. We got out-rebounded, not by a lot, but we shouldn't be getting out-rebounded by teams like this. So I mean, we just got to focus on hitting our man and going to get the ball and being strong with it because teams like this, they come play UCLA, they don't really care about winning, they just want to play scrappy and physical. So we just got to play strong against teams like that and grab rebounds."

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