Entering Thursday night’s game against Oregon State, the UCLA men’s basketball team was noticeably thin in the frontcourt.

Senior forward James Keefe and freshmen forwards Reeves Nelson and Brendan Lane were relegated to spectators, taking in the game in street clothes on the sideline. With such a lack of depth, there was a need for someone to step up in the starting lineup.

Fortunately, that role was filled by freshman Tyler Honeycutt. In 34 minutes, Honeycutt notched his third double-double of the season with a career-high 18 points and 10 rebounds in UCLA’s 65-56 win in front of 7,589 at Pauley Pavilion.

Honeycutt filled out the stat sheet with four assists and five blocks in what coach Ben Howland termed one of his better games of the season.

“His rebounding was fantastic and his blocked shots,” Howland said. “We got beat too much on penetration.”

Honeycutt admitted that there was a sense of added pressure on the starters to perform well given their increased minutes and their slightly different roles. For Honeycutt, with the absence of Nelson, he shifted from small forward to power forward, a role in which Honeycutt said he had not played much.

“The outside of the zone is kind of different,” Honeycutt said.

Honeycutt’s 10 rebounds proved to be crucial on a night in which the Bruins were soundly beat on the boards by Oregon State, 40-24. After Honeycutt, the most rebounds a Bruin player had was three.

“There’s no such thing as a selfish rebounder,” Howland said. “Rebounding is such a key to being a great team.”

With a smaller team, Honeycutt said he knew rebounding would have to play a large part of his game.

Dragovic injures shoulder

UCLA received a brief scare Thursday night when senior forward Nikola Dragovic injured his left shoulder while diving for a loose ball in the first half.

Dragovic was attended to by the training staff on the UCLA bench and returned later in the half. He finished with 14 points, all of which came in the second half. After the game, Howland said that Dragovic suffered a subluxed shoulder.

Dragovic’s parents were in attendance to see their son play at Pauley Pavilion for the first time, along with some family friends from Montenegro, Dragovic’s home country.

Lane doubtful for Saturday

Howland said that Lane is “very doubtful” to play on Saturday. Lane sprained his ankle at the end of Tuesday’s practice.