UCLA Basketball: Sharpshooting Swingman Reflects On Rough Start Vs Leopards

At least things improved in the second half!

Your UCLA Bruins may be enjoying an immaculate start to their 105th NCAA season at 2-0, but things sure looked dicey against an inferior opponent far too long on Friday.

The visiting Lafayette Leopards ran out to a 43-34 lead at the 15:21 mark of the second half, before the Bruins stopped the bleeding with two jumpers from junior transfer small forward Lazar Stefanvoic and some clutch foul shooting from Adem Bona. Suddenly, it was a four-point game.

After that, the tides turned pretty definitively.

All told, UCLA ripped off a 34-7 run to eventually secure a comfortable double-digit victory, 68-50.

Stefanovic had struggled through a patchy first half, as he explained during his postgame comments.

“Shots sometimes don't go in. But as a shooter, you have to keep your confidence high and keep shooting. Eventually, they're going to fall. I think my teammates were trusting me.”

Lazar Stefanovic, after UCLA’s 68-50 win pic.twitter.com/kOkxVzdVH9

— UCLA Men’s Basketball (@UCLAMBB) November 11, 2023

“Shots sometimes don't go in," Stefanovic conceded. "But as a shooter, you have to keep your confidence high and keep shooting. Eventually, they're going to fall. I think my teammates were trusting me.”

All told, the 6'7" wing finished with 11 points on a fairly inefficient 4-of-14 shooting line from the field, including just 1-of-5 shooting from long range, along with 2-of-2 shooting from the charity stripe. He also chipped in four rebounds and four steals.

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