UCLA dispatches Chaminade, takes on tourney nemesis Gonzaga
ASSOCIATED PRESS
UCLA guard Sebastian Mack, left, Chaminade forward Wyatt Lowell (25) and Bruins forward Berke Buyuktuncel battled for a rebound on Tuesday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
UCLA guard Sebastian Mack (12) makes a layup against Chaminade during the second half.
Freshman Sebastian Mack scored 16 points, Lazar Stefanovic added 13 points and UCLA beat Chaminade 76-48 on Tuesday in the Allstate Maui Invitational to set up a rematch with the Bruins’ NCAA Tournament nemesis.
UCLA (4-1) will play No. 11 Gonzaga (3-1) in the fifth-place game today. In two of the past three NCAA Tournaments, Gonzaga ousted UCLA. The Bulldogs beat the Bruins 79-76 in March 23, 2023, and 93-90 in overtime on April 3, 2021 on Jalen Suggs’ near-midcourt buzzer-beater.
Adem Bona added 12 points and Aday Mara grabbed 10 rebounds for UCLA. Mack, who scored 25 points in a 71-69 loss to No. 4 Marquette on Monday, was 7-for-15 from the field with six rebounds and five steals.
UCLA scored 13 of the opening 15 points of the game and added a 15-0 run for a 28-4 lead with 11 minutes remaining.
UCLA turned it over 14 times in the first half before finishing with 18.
Chaminade also had a 9-0 run in the second half, on three 3-pointers, to get within 45-35 with 14:24 left. But that’s as close as the Silverswords would get. UCLA secured it by scoring 14 straight points to make it 72-44.
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Jamir Thomas scored 17 points, with five 3-pointers, for Chaminade.
No. 11 Gonzaga 76, Syracuse 57
Nolan Hickman scored 12 of his team-high 19 points after halftime and Graham Ike and Anton Watson posted double-doubles to lead the Bulldogs (3-1) past the Orange (3-2).
The Bulldogs got 16 points and 14 rebounds from Ike, and 12 points and 13 rebounds from Watson. Ike, a 6-foot-9 redshirt junior forward, also came up with four steals. Ryan Nembhard added 11 points, seven assists and five rebounds.
Gonzaga, which led by as many as 23 points late in the game, outrebounded the Orange 48-28, and held a 25-8 advantage in second-chance points.
Syracuse got within 51-45 with 9:39 left in the game on a Maliq Brown two-handed dunk that was set-up by a Judah Mintz bounce pass that split a pair of defenders. But, the Bulldogs answered with a 15-5 run that was punctuated by a steal by Ike that led to a breakaway dunk by Ryan Nembhard, giving Gonzaga a 66-46 cushion with 4:17 to play.
The game featured a pair of coaches on opposite ends of their career; Mark Few is in his 25th season at Gonzaga and is the winningest active coach in Division I, while Adrian Autry has three wins in his first season as Syracuse coach.
“It was a really, really, really good win for us with such a quick turnaround and playing in a breakfast bracket early morning, so I was really, really proud of our response. We came out with great energy, we came out with great effort and obviously great toughness as it showed with the rebounding differential,” Bulldogs coach Mark Few said.
