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Love leads UCLA in rout over Arizona

Feb 3, 2008 - 5:47 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Freshman Kevin Love and fifth-ranked UCLA jumped out early and never looked back.

Love scored 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Bruins to an 82-60 drubbing of Arizona on Saturday night in a Pac-10 Conference matchup.

Russell Westbrook had 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting and Darren Collison added 12 with seven assists for UCLA (20-2, 8-1 Pac-10), which has won four straight games and 13 of its last 14 contests.

"Russell Westbrook was special on both ends of the court and did a great job defending (Arizona guard Jerryd) Bayless," UCLA coach Ben Howland said. "Darren Collison also had another outstanding game and was particularly tremendous with his on-the-ball defense. I can't imagine a quicker backcourt in the nation."

After Jawann McClellan's jump shot gave the Wildcats a 5-4 lead just over 2 1/2 minutes into the game, the Bruins went on a 15-1 run and the contest was never in doubt from that point.

"We were thoroughly outplayed, outcoached, outhustled; we were never in it," Arizona coach Kevin O'Neill said. "I was disappointed we had no fight, They went after us from the beginning to the end. I've been proud of this team's effort in the past, but I was not proud of tonight's performance from top to bottom."

Nic Wise knocked down a pair of free throws to close the deficit to nine with 7:22 left in the first half, but UCLA answered with a 9-2 run and extended its lead to 34-16 with 3:42 remaining. Westbrook scored the final five points for the Bruins on the burst.

UCLA did not let up after the spurt, taking a 44-22 edge into the break. It was the lowest scoring output in a half for Arizona this season.

"I thought we played our best two games back-to-back all year, and I'm really excited about our team effort," Howland said. "I thought our defense in the first half was outstanding, in the second half we got tired and lost some intensity, but overall we did a tremendous job defensively the whole game."

Love continued his impressive shooting throughout the contest, making 9-of-12 attempts from the floor. He has shot 71 percent (32-of-45) over the Bruins' four-game winning streak.

The freshman center also posted his sixth consecutive double-double Saturday.

"Kevin Love had another unbelievable game," Howland said. "He is such a special player and is so hard to handle in the paint. I think the whole team did a good job feeding him the ball. He put a lot of hard work on the boards and got a lot of put-backs from that."

Josh Shipp finished with 12 points and five rebounds for UCLA, which shot an impressive 56 percent (32-of-57) from the field.

Bayless, a freshman, led the Wildcats with 13 points and McClellan added 10 points and seven rebounds. Wise chipped in 10 for Arizona (15-7, 5-4), which had a four-game winning streak snapped.

"We missed a lot of layups and we're not going to be a good team in their place if we do that," O'Neill said. "We played soft and timid. Overall, I'm not happy to be where we are at 5-4 (in Pac-10 play). Nobody stood out for us tonight."