ANAHEIM — The team might remain an enigma, but Joshua Smith is trying hard to become part of UCLA’s identity.

The UCLA men’s basketball team added the latest up to an up-and-down season on Saturday, nabbing its biggest win of the season over No. 16 BYU at the John Wooden Classic. The 86-79 win came just five days after UCLA squeaked past UC Davis and two weeks after the team narrowly fell to then-No. 4 Kansas, only to lose days later to Montana.

No one quite knows what to expect from this 6-4 squad on a given afternoon. But increasingly, UCLA is relying on one of its newest members.

“Josh (Smith) is such a presence inside,” coach Ben Howland praised.

Or to put it another way: “He’s as difficult a matchup as we’ve had,” BYU coach Dave Rose concurred.

The freshman center Smith was the difference on Saturday against the Cougars.

But Smith once again found himself in foul trouble, unhappy with a blocking call that sent him to the bench with four fouls and 15:26 still remaining in the game.

He slapped away the towel he was offered, and punched his chair, hard.

With the big man on the bench, UCLA’s 10-point lead shriveled to two in almost exactly five minutes. In that span, sophomore Tyler Honeycutt and junior Lazaric Jones both picked up their fourth foul while the Cougars orchestrated a 9-0 run.
Momentum was shifting away from the Bruins.

So back came Smith, four fouls and all, 10 minutes still to play.

And his teammates wasted no time feeding the center. Smith got an easy bucket in the paint on his first trip down the floor to snap the run. Then the 300-pound first-year hustled back down the court and took a charge – a risky move that very well could have resulted in his fifth and final foul.

Instead it was an offensive foul – the fourth on BYU’s best player, Jimmer Fredette, who proceeded to trudge to the bench.
After Jones nailed a three on the Bruins’ next possession, UCLA fed the post again as Smith continued to deliver.

With no answer for the big man, Smith was bear hugged as he tried to finish a layup underneath.

Smith didn’t like the aggressive foul. Teammates had to separate him from his aggressor prior to free throws.

So he responded by scoring again from the paint the next time down the floor to stretch the Bruins’ lead back to eight.

“After my last game with four fouls, I had a good talk with my dad,” Smith said. He said it looks like you’re not having fun out there. … So when I was playing with four fouls, I tried to play like I had zero.”

The Bruins wouldn’t look back after Smith’s burst of scoring. Sophomore Reeves Nelson’s career-high 23 points, along with 17 from Honeycutt and Smith’s 15, helped seal the Bruins’ first win over a ranked team this season.

“This is big for us,” Howland said. “It was a great overall team effort.”

By necessity, eight of Howland’s nine scholarship players saw double-digit minutes, and six played 20 or more.

Howland admitted after the game that he had asked the team to practice with Coach Wooden in mind. UCLA played one of their worst games of the year against at last year’s Classic with the legendary coach in his box.

“I was really looking forward to meeting him,” Smith said.
Wooden didn’t get to see UCLA’s performance this time around. And he never got to meet Smith. But Howland seemed sure that Wooden would have been pleased.

“We played for Coach today,” Howland said. “We wanted him to be proud of our team.”