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  Thursday, Jan. 27 10:35pm ET
Bruins halt Beavers in second half
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -- What Ray Young started, UCLA's defense finished.

Young came off the bench to provide the scoring that kept UCLA (No. 20 ESPN/USA Today) close in the first half, then the Bruins shut down Oregon State midway through the second half for an 85-74 victory Thursday night.

Young scored 14 of his career-high 22 points in the first half to help UCLA (12-5 overall, 3-3 Pacific-10) stay within 37-33 of the Beavers (10-7, 3-3) at halftime. After Oregon State built its lead to 56-45 with 11:00 left, the Bruins began forcing the Beavers into missed shots and went on a 31-5 run to take control.

"I thought when we started playing better defense, our aggressiveness on defense carried over to better execution on offense," UCLA coach Steve Lavin said. "It all started with our defense creating our offense, and that's usually when you play good basketball."

Oregon State, which is winless in four Pac-10 home games but 2-0 on the road, was led by Deaundra Tanner's 17 points. The Beavers led for almost all of the game's first 32 minutes.

"We were playing solid during that time," Oregon State coach Eddie Payne said. "Defending, limiting offensive rebounds -- basically, we scored enough points to win. We didn't defend and rebound during that stretch when they were scoring."

Oregon State led 56-45 on a pair of free throws by Brian Jackson with 11 minutes to play. But the Bruins outscored the Beavers by 26 points over the next 7:37. They caught Oregon State at 58-58 on a jumper by Young with 8:04 to go and went ahead 76-61 when Earl Watson scored on a drive down the lane with 3:23 to go.

The Bruins shot 58.6 percent from the field in the second half, while limiting Oregon State to 32.3 percent in the half.

"In the first half, we didn't come out strong," said UCLA center Dan Gadzuric, who spent almost the entire half playing zone defense. "Defensively, we let them just penetrate in the middle and just have open shots. In the second half, we went man-to-man more and that might have been the difference."

Jason Kapono finished with 16 points and five assists, while Gadzuric had 13 points for the game. The Bruins finished with five players scoring in double figures, as Watson had 15 points and nine rebounds and Jerome Moiso had 12 points and 11 rebounds.

"We have a lot of guys who can knock down 3s," Lavin said. "And what we've learned is we're a much better team when there's a balance of inside-outside basketball."

Young, a sophomore guard who was averaging 6.6 points per game for UCLA, was 8-for-11 from the field, including 5-for-6 on 3-pointers. He also had six assists and a blocked shot.

"I just wanted to be energized when I came into the game," said Young, who hit three straight 3-pointers and a layin at one point in the first half to help the Bruins from a 5-0 deficit to a 15-14 lead. "I think when we get good bench production, we always seem to win the game."
 


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