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LOS ANGELES ? Jerime Anderson's halftime speech to his UCLA teammates Thursday night was brief was to the point.
"Two words," the Bruins senior point guard recalled later.
"The first was something I can't repeat. The second word was 'Oregon.'"
Anderson's speech was both a reminder of how the Bruins blew a game Saturday in Eugene and also a rallying cry for UCLA as it kept its foot on the gas in the second half and rolled over Utah, 76-49, at a less than two-thirds full Sports Arena on Thursday night.
UCLA (11-9, 4-4 Pac-12) turned a 15-point halftime lead into a 36-point advantage in the second half by shooting 73.7 percent from the field and maintaining its defensive intensity in the final 20 minutes.
"This game was a real confidence booster for us," forward David Wear said. "We focused for a full 40 minutes defensively."
Wear and the Bruins believe they can still get back into the Pac-12 race with a victory against Colorado (14-6, 6-2), one of four schools tied for the conference lead, on Saturday.
"With the Pac-12 still wide open this year," said UCLA center Joshua Smith, who led four Bruins in double figures with a game-high 14 points. "There's not really a team that has really established itself as a dominant team. We know this was a very big week for us."
The weekend looms even larger after UCLA wasted a pair of winnable games last weekend in the Willamette Valley. The 75-68 loss at Oregon was particularly difficult to get over after UCLA led by 15 late in the first half only to lose control of the game in the opening moments of the second half.
The memory was still fresh as UCLA took a 36-21 lead into the locker room Thursday after the Bruins broke the game open with a 14-4 run over the final 6:33 of the first half.
"We felt the first five minutes of the second half were really huge," said Coach Ben Howland, who picked up his 200th victory at UCLA. "I didn't talk about last Saturday (at halftime) but that was exactly what was going through my mind."
This time there was no let up.
After Utes center Jason Washburn scored the opening basket of the second half, the Bruins rattled off six quick consecutive points, capped by a David Wear 3-point jumper to go out, 42-23. Another Wear 3-pointer and a 3-point play by Jerime Anderson found the Bruins ahead, 53-32.
Moments later, UCLA sophomore guard Tyler Lamb picked up a steal on one end, and then nailed a 3-pointer on the other and then freshman guard Norman Powell converted another Utah turnover to stretch the gap to 58-32.
Anderson played what Howland characterized as his "best game as a Bruin," scoring 13, and adding three assists, three steals and a blocked shot.
David Wear finished with 13 points. Guard Tyler Lamb had 10 points, four assists and three steals on perhaps UCLA's most balanced game of the season. UCLA's other point guard,
Lazeric Jones, scored just seven points but was still pivotal to the offense dishing out six assists.
But perhaps the most encouraging performance came from Smith, who rebounded from a disastrous game against Oregon in which he didn't score a field goal until the final 37.9 seconds of the loss.
"I thought he was really motivated after last week," Howland said.
Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
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