UCLA refocused on defense in road game against Northwestern

UCLA looks to salvage its final road trip of its inaugural Big Ten Conference season on Monday when the Bruins face recently surging Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.

UCLA (20-9, 11-7 Big Ten) suffered a major blow to its pursuit of a top-four seed and bye into the quarterfinals of the upcoming conference tournament with a 76-66 loss on Friday at Purdue. The setback leaves the Bruins behind five teams in the Big Ten standings, and a game behind Wisconsin, Maryland and Purdue in contention for that important No. 4 spot.

Both the Terrapins and Boilermakers own the head-to-head tiebreaking win over UCLA, as well. The Bruins hold the edge over Wisconsin.

The Bruins gave up a late 12-0 run in Friday's loss and were outscored 21-10 overall in the final eight minutes.

"I say this every time, but real teams, they can defend for 40 minutes," said UCLA coach Mick Cronin. "Teams that are going to march on, they can defend for 40 minutes."

The Bruins head into Northwestern holding opponents to 65 points per game, tied for 21st in NCAA Division I, but they have given up 75-plus points in five of their seven conference losses.

Northwestern (16-13, 7-11) heads into Monday's contest riding its own defensive play to a three-game winning streak. The Wildcats have held their last four opponents to 68 points or fewer, and they are limiting teams to 56.3 points per game in the three wins.

Northwestern won all three of those games by double-digit-point margins, including Friday's 68-57 defeat of Iowa. The Wildcats held the Hawkeyes to 21-of-58 shooting (36.2 percent) from the floor, including 8 of 25 (32 percent) from 3-point range.

Nick Martinelli, the conference's leading scorer, went for 16 points and nine rebounds. He heads into the UCLA matchup averaging 19.9 points per game and 6.1 rebounds per game, the latter taking over as team-high with 2024 All-Big Ten selection Brooks Barnhizer sidelined for the rest of the season with a foot injury.

"I've been proud of a lot of teams for a lot of different reasons, but not sure I've been more proud of an individual team than I am about this one right now," Wildcats coach Chris Collins said.

Northwestern is looking to ensure itself a spot in the Big Ten tournament. The expanded conference's postseason excludes the bottom three finishers in the regular-season standings, and the Wildcats are currently tied with Minnesota, Nebraska and Rutgers for the 11th through 14th spots.

--Field Level Media