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STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Kyle Anderson had 18 points and 13 rebounds, Shabazz Muhammad made a late four-point play and UCLA held on to beat Stanford 88-80 on Saturday.
Two days after struggling offensively in a 13-point loss at California, the Bruins (19-7, 9-4 Pac-12) bounced back behind a stellar effort from their two prized freshmen. Anderson recorded his team-leading seventh double-double while Muhammad finished with 25 points, eight in the final 1:52.
Dwight Powell scored 22 points while Aaron Bright had 19 for Stanford.
Josh Huestis posted his seventh double-double, tallying 11 points and 12 rebounds.
Stanford shot 38.5 percent overall and was just 5-23 from three-point territory. UCLA connected at 54.4 percent overall and was 6-12 from beyond the arc. Both teams were solid from the foul line, with Stanford making 15-21 and UCLA 20-26.
The Cardinal (15-11, 6-7), which has dropped three of its last four games, trailed by 10 in the first half before cutting the halftime deficit to 43-38.
UCLA built a six-point lead early in the second half, before a three-pointer from Aaron Bright tied the game at 58-58 with 11:35 remaining.
Leading 73-69 with 4:09 left to play, the Bruins embarked on a 10-3 scoring run to secure the game.
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NOTES: Dwight Powell (22 points on 7-15 shooting) has scored at least 20 points in three of the last four games. Powell, who was 8-10 from the foul line, also grabbed eight boards and dished out four assists in 37 minutes ... Josh Huestis has produced double-doubles in four of his last five games. Huestis is now averaging 10.3 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, looking to become the first Stanford player to average a double-double since Curtis Borchardt in 2001-02 ... Aaron Bright scored in double figures for the seventh time this year, finishing with 19 points on 8-16 shooting (3-8 from three-point territory). He dished out three assists while playing a season-high 36 minutes ... Rosco Allen quietly grabbed a career-high eight rebounds despite being held scoreless in 16 minutes off the bench ... Stanford was swept in a conference homestand for the first time since February 2011, losing to UCLA (69-65) and USC (69-53).
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Stanford Head Coach Johnny Dawkins
"I thought UCLA played a heck of a basketball game tonight. I thought our kids tried to match it in a lot of ways, and give them credit. At the end of the day, they had three freshmen combine for 63 points, and they shot good percentages doing it. They were coming off a game that was very difficult for them from the standpoint of how they played, the way they looked. And they played with a sense of urgency tonight. I thought my kids fought and gave a heck of an effort and had our chances. I think Josh Huestis picking up the second foul in the first half hurt us, and I thought we just didn't finish plays. We had some good opportunities around the basket, we were making runs and had a chance to keep the game close, and we just didn't finish plays that we needed to finish."
"We scored 80 points, and we'll be fine competing against anybody if we can score that type of number, because we typically defend a lot better than we defended tonight. For them to have the field-goal percentage that they had, for them to have the amount of points that they had, it's uncharacteristic of how we've defended this year. So I'm very disappointed on that end more than on offense. I thought offensively, we got good looks but we missed good shots. We still managed to claw, fight to get 80, so then it becomes just a matter of can you stop somebody, and we just didn't make the stops tonight."
"I don't think it was a lack of intensity. Our guys came ready to fight. We prepared well and talked about how both teams are really clawing and scraping for what we're trying to do in this conference. I just think when you have guys, like the plays that Shabazz Muhammad made, I don't think those are all easy shots. He made the three being fouled. It's a four-point play and he was hit. I thought Jordan Adams made a lot of tough shots. I thought he was strong around the post. I mean, we're not as big around the perimeter as he is, so he used his weight well around the basket, got in the paint against us, and I thought that Kyle Anderson was terrific tonight. His ability to handle the basketball, kind of control the offense as a point forward."
"Our goals are to keep fighting. We have five games remaining, and we have to go out there and compete to try to win every one of those games. I mean, anything can happen in this conference. I think we've already seen that. Our job is to stay focused, to understand that we have to get better and we have to be ready for our next game. I talked to our team after the game was over about there's nothing that we can do about this loss, it's painful for all of us, but we have to make sure we bounce back the right way from this loss and learn from it. And what we learn is that we have to defend better than we did tonight."
"We think we're a good basketball team. We've played some good basketball and have also had some tough moments. You know, we lost a close game. I'm not disappointed in my team or their effort one bit, I just think we ran across a team that had a buzzsaw mentality in terms of shooting the basketball, and I thought our guys still managed to hang in there and play very well even though we were in a tough situation where guys are making shots all over the place. And I've seen enough games and watched them on tape, like I watch every team, and I've not seen them make shots like that. They had one of those nights where they're throwing up shots, we had hands in guys' faces, they still made shots, we fouled guys and they still made shots. Unfortunately, we caught that night. We have pride in what we do in the defensive end and we'll talk about all those things. But at the end of the day, my kids do fight and they do compete, and I'll never go down in believing they don't."
"I was very happy to see Aaron (Bright) have a good game shooting the basketball. Of all the guys for us who have struggled, I think he's probably struggled the most shooting the ball and that's his strength. So I was glad to see him fight out of it tonight, and he had a great night shooting the basketball. And if he continues to do that, we're only going to be better."
Junior Forward Dwight Powell
"First and foremost, we let them do what they do, which is to get out and run. And they're a high-scoring team, good shooters, and we just didn't key in on their key guys as well as we should have, and we let them get going. It's not the kind of team you can outscore. You've got to stop them and we didn't do that tonight."
"We were always feeling intense. Aaron's threes mean a lot to us, just like John's and Chasson's, but we weren't going to give up, so we were just fighting for it."
"It always hurts when you foul a jump-shooter, especially a three-point jump-shooter away from the basket. Yeah, it's tough, but we don't blame that for the loss. There are a lot of things that led up to that. They already had almost 80 points, so we have to get stops the whole game to come up with wins like those."
"We still want to win as many games as possible. Our short-term goal is there's only one game ahead of us. We're only promised one right now, so that's the next focus. My mood is that I'm ready to start watching film on the Oregon schools and start getting ready for the trip."
UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland
"We did a good job on the boards in the first half, holding them to 38 percent field goal shooting, which was huge. We knew we had to bounce back after the disappointing defeat over there in Berkeley the other night. This is a good Stanford team, which has beaten Oregon and Arizona State. This is a big win for us, a huge win on the road. We're at 9-4 with five games left."
"Kyle Anderson's play today was terrific, and obviously Shabazz (Muhammad). He made the four-point play that gave us a lead that was hard to overcome. But there were a couple of ones earlier that were just as important."
"The three freshmen all played great. But there are a lot of things that don't show up in the stats, like David Wear's screen for Jordan (Adams) for a jump shot. Travis Wear, who's been struggling, got six defensive boards. We got big minutes off the bench from a lot of guys."
Freshman Forward Kyle Anderson
"The way we bounced back from that Cal game was very mature of us. We flushed down that game at Cal and came here, and stayed focused."
"Our transition game puts a lot of pressure on their half-court game. Good defensive possessions lead to good transitions. When our transition game is going like it was today, sometimes we are able to slow it down and convert in the halfcourt. We try to get Baz and Jordan open shots."
"We did really well in transition against Stanford the first time at home, and that's something Coach Howland stressed to us: great defensive possessions lead into transitions and that worked really well for us today. Coach stressed to us that we needed to keep their two top frontcourt players (Dwight Powell and Josh Huestis) off the glass, and we did it. That led to a win."