Peyton Watson Leads Bench Scoring Explosion, UCLA Men's Basketball Beats Bellarmine

The five-star freshman tripled his career high in points while powering the Bruins' deciding advantage in bench points over the Knights.

One team came into Monday night with more NCAA championships than any other program in the nation, while the other was less than two years removed from joining the Division I ranks to begin with.

Despite the vast canyon between the two schools' basketball prowesses, the Bruins were letting the Knights hang around early.

And then Peyton Watson checked in.

No. 2 UCLA men's basketball (5-0) led by just two points eight minutes into its game against Bellarmine (0-5) at the Empire Classic in Las Vegas, which was built more around the game against No. 1 Gonzaga on Tuesday rather than Monday's contest versus one of the smaller programs in the country. The Bruins flipped a switch when they got some fresh legs off the bench, however, as Watson scored nine points in four minutes to create such much-needed separation en route to an eventual 75-62 victory.

In that stretch, Watson wound up drilling his first career 3-pointer at the college level, in addition to finishing a fast break alley-oop and flushing another wide open slam in the paint.

Watson wasn't the only one who sparked that early run, though, as UCLA's bench unit scored 23 of the team's 36 first half points. Guard David Singleton hit a catch-and-shoot midrange jumper off an out-of-bounds play under the basket, and those were the first points of the 19-2 run that gave the Bruins their big-time lead.

Guard Johnny Juzang was leading the way with 11 points in the first half, but guard Jules Bernard was the only other UCLA starter who saw a shot fall in the opening 20 minutes of play, and he had a mere two points. Singleton's eight points and guard Jaylen Clark's six helped power that key first half run.

The starters finally got rolling in the second half, with guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., center Myles Johnson and guard Tyger Campbell each scoring as part of a 13-2 run to start the period. That didn't mean Watson faded, though, as he scored nearly half of those points with three additional field goals in that span, and he ended Monday with a career-high 19 points.

Watson's previous career high was seven points, and he had been averaging 3.3 points per game through his first four collegiate appearances. After entering Monday shooting 21.7%, Watson went 9-of-12 from the field against the Knights.

Singleton continued to hit 3-pointers in the second half as well, and he ended the night with 13 points on 3-of-4 shooting from downtown. By the time the final buzzer sounded, UCLA's reserves outscored Bellarmine's 40-8.

The bench trio of Watson, Singleton and Clark took on a heavy load in the scoring department, but the rest of the usual suspects played their part in other ways.

Jaquez assisted three of Watson's first four shots, including the alley-oop lob, and finished the first half with a team-high seven boards, four helpers and three steals. Johnson reached double-digit rebounds for the second game in a row, and eight of his 11 total rebounds came on the offensive glass, helping the Bruins finish with a 21-9 advantage in second chance points.

Bellarmine wound up clawing its way back into the game in the last 10 minutes of the second half after trailing by 20-plus points for most of the previous eight minutes. The Knights hit 6-of-10 field goals and another five free throws to close the deficit to 10 with two minutes left on the clock.

A steal by Singleton and ensuing alley-oop from Campbell to Johnson seemingly squashed the hopes at a late comeback, but Bellarmine kept answering and made it 70-60 with 57 seconds remaining when UCLA failed to get back on defense after another Johnson field goal.

Free throws also kept the Knights around, as they went a perfect 13-of-13 from the stripe while the Bruins finished 1-of-6.

It wasn't until Juzang hit an open layup and Bernard drilled a corner 3 that the Bruins could really take their foot off the gas, but that came with only a few seconds left to play. Juzang shot just 5-of-14 from the field, and he posted a team-low plus-minus of -3, while Watson led the way at +19.

UCLA will return to T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday for a Final Four rematch with Gonzaga. That game, which will be televised on ESPN, is set to tip-off at 7 p.m.

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