UCLA Basketball: Washington Coach Concedes Huskies Had No Answer For Flawed Bruins

Is this a turning point for UCLA?

Following your UCLA Bruins' 73-61 victory over the Washington Huskies on Sunday, Washington head coach Mike Hopkins offered up some major praise for the Blue and Gold postgame, while acknowledging that UCLA has had trouble on one side of the floor this year, per UCLA Communications. 

“We just didn’t have a lot of juice today," Hopkins said. "We knew that UCLA recently struggled offensively, but they really got back on defense and at fast-break points, and they made us have turnovers, which is not a winning recipe. We just really had no flow going. They also did a great job of getting back in transition. At one point in the game, [Adem] Bona scored four-straight baskets. I think that was a turning point. Points off turnovers – that’s just not Husky Basketball.”

Bona, UCLA's 6'10" starting center, scored a team-most 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from the charity stripe, while pulling down one rebound, dishing out one dime, and swiping one steal in just 27 minutes.

Hopkins specifically singled out UCLA's defensive effort against his squad.

“They really loaded up – we couldn’t get any deep post-up looks. They really helped out a lot on penetration.”

The win improved the Bruins to a still-bad 7-10 record on the 2023-24 season (2-4 in the Pac-12 conference), and dropped the Huskies to 10-7 record (2-4 in the Pac-12).