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  BRIDGET O'BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior guard Ray Young tries to make his way to the key in last night's 83-77 win over UC Santa Barbara.

By AJ Cadman

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It could have been déjà vu all over again on Wednesday night against UC Santa Barbara.

But clutch shooting down the stretch by the UCLA men’s basketball team and poor free throw shooting by the Gauchos helped the Bruins (2-2) escape with a 83-77 victory over Santa Barbara (0-4) before a crowd of just 6,927 at Pauley Pavilion.

Sophomore forward Jason Kapono finished the evening with a game-high 24 points after struggling with 2-of-9 shooting from the floor in the first half. Junior center Dan Gadzuric dropped 17 of his 21 points in the first 20 minutes to keep the Bruins close and Ray Young continued his offensive resurrection with 16 points and six assists. Mark Hull led the Gauchos with 23 points, including 5-of-6 from beyond the arc.

“Obviously, Santa Barbara came in and played extremely well,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said. “They stayed poised and came back after they fell behind early. They knocked down big shots and executed well against the press.”

  BRIDGET O'BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Dan Gadzuric, at 6-foot-11, hops up for a dunk against UCSB last night in Pauley Pavilion. Gadzuric scored 21 points for the Bruins. The Bruins took off early. Just five seconds into the game Young had an alley-oop slam from senior point guard Earl Watson that evoked an eruption from the crowd.

UCLA opted to establish an inside presence from the start with Gadzuric against an undermanned Santa Barbara squad that was missing two starters on the night. The 6-foot-10 center got numerous looks all around the basket, but it was his steal and fastbreak poster jam at 16:19 that boosted the Bruin lead to 12-6, prompting a Gaucho timeout to silence the boisterous Bruin student section.

“Our game plan was to get the ball inside and I was able to post up hard and get good looks,” Gadzuric said of his breakout performance. “I am still trying to get my touch back and do what I know I am capable of doing. When the defense collapses on me, then I know to kick the ball out to our shooters.”

UCLA opened up its biggest lead on the night at the 12:46 mark of the opening frame on a Kapono rebound and putback after an errant Young three-pointer. With an 11 point lead at 21-10, the Bruins still didn’t really seem in control of the contest.

UCSB went on a 19-6 run in the next four minutes and cut the deficit to two on a Mike Vukovich backdoor lay-in. The Gauchos knotted the score at 31 with less than five minutes remaining in the first half on a Jjuliano Jordani basket and take their first lead on the ensuing possession with a Nick Jones jumper.

“We have to get better at defending against dribble penetration and contesting open shots,” Lavin said of UCLA’s halfcourt defense. “We have to get organized in transition after the press breaks down and scramble to rotate to our spots to stop the open looks they got in the first half.”

Going into the half with a 41-38 advantage, Santa Barbara traded baskets with UCLA for the first five minutes of the second half. But a Hull three-pointer on the right wing pushed the Gaucho lead back up to four.

The Bruins countered by pushing the ball up the floor to get fast break opportunities and avoid the multiple zone and man defenses that UCSB threw at them. UCLA regained the lead for good, bringing the score to 65-64 on a T.J. Cummings baseline jam with eight minutes remaining in the game.

With under six minutes to go, Watson threaded the needle and found forward Matt Barnes running the baseline for any alley-oop jam. A Kapono three-pointer at 1:39 all but sealed the Gauchos’ fate and helped the Bruins avoid a 1-3 start for the first time since the 1987-88 season.

Santa Barbara went 4-for-9 from the charity stripe in the second half and missed clutch freebies that could have kept things close. UCLA kept the contest tight by going 7-for-25 from downtown (28 percent).

As the clock wound down in the second half, a simple gesture displayed the Bruins’ attitude toward their second victory of the season. Watson got the inbound pass and set the ball gently on the floor with a look of relief; the team had played just well enough to win.

“We’re not satisfied with our defense,” Watson said. “We have a long way to go. But they scored less points than our offense scored, and getting the ‘W’ is the most important thing.”

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