EUGENE, Ore. — UCLA coach Ben Howland wasn’t pleased with his team’s defensive effort in Thursday’s 87-84 loss to Oregon State, big surprise.

“Our defense was really poor,” the defensive disciplinarian said Friday on a teleconference with reporters. “We did not do a good job of staying in our stance. We scored enough points to win, we just did not get stops. We’ve got to do a much better job defensively.”

Howland’s Bruins shot for more than 55 percent from the field, free throw line and 3-point range but allowed the Beavers to do them one better, scoring at will and getting to the line countless times.

According to Howland, now in his ninth year of preaching a hard-nosed, defensive-minded style of play, it boils down to effort.

“It’s disappointing because our stance off the ball, our help, just our sense of urgency and intensity wasn’t where it needs to be,” Howland said. “We felt like we’ve been getting better defensively so to turn around and not have the kind of defensive showing that we had had in the last two weeks was disappointing.”

Howland thinks Thursday’s poor defensive effort was an anomaly and hopes his team will continue to play the kind of defense that helped it win three straight games over the last two weeks against Oregon on Saturday.

“I think that we’ll play better defense,” he said. “(Our players) saw that our intensity level has to be ratcheted up.”

The Bruins (10-8, 3-3 Pac-12) will have to improve quickly against Oregon Ducks (14-5, 5-2), who have been one of the surprises of the conference thus far, and they will have to do it without much rest or practice time to prepare.

With less than 48 hours to prepare for Oregon, Howland gave his team the day off from practice Friday, choosing to let his team rest and watch film as four of his players played 30 minutes or more in Thursday’s loss.

“We’ve got to really tighten up our defense,” Howland said. “To win on the road is tough. You have to do it by playing great defense, taking care of the basketball and playing smart.”

The last time the Bruins and Ducks squared off was in the opening round of last season’s Pac-10 Tournament. After sweeping the regular season series, UCLA was shocked by Oregon in a 17-point loss.

Smith rides the pine

Any good defensive effort starts down low and Howland said he’s not getting the type of effort he wants out of sophomore center Joshua Smith.

“He’s got to help us more than he’s doing defensively,” Howland said. “He has zero blocked shots in the conference so far and he has to be more of a presence for us on that end of the floor. We need him to step up and play better defense for us.”

He will have to do it a few minutes into the game on Saturday. Howland has no concrete plans for the remainder of the season but maintains that Smith will continue to come off the bench for now, rather than starting, in an effort to keep him out of foul trouble.

Compiled by Sam Strong, Bruin Sports senior staff.