Field Level Media
Mar 8, 2018
UCLA guard Aaron Holiday tied a career high with 34 points and added eight assists and six rebounds as the fourth-seeded Bruins moved into the Pac-12 tournament semifinals with an 88-77 victory over Stanford on Thursday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Holiday made five 3-pointers and Thomas Welsh hit four as part of a double-double that included 18 points and 11 rebounds. The Bruins (21-10) will face No. 15 Arizona, the Pac-12's regular-season champion, on Friday.
UCLA handed the Wildcats their only home loss of the season in the lone meeting Feb. 6, an 84-72 victory in which the Bruins built a 15-point lead with eight minutes remaining and coasted home.
Freshman Kezie Okpala had a season-high 23 points and Reid Travis had 17 points and 14 rebounds for the Cardinal (18-15), who had won five of six and seven of 10. Okpala had seven rebounds and five assists.
The Bruins never trailed and led by as many as 13. Stanford never was closer than eight in the final 5 1/2 minutes.
Holiday, the Pac-12 scoring leader at 20.1 points a game, played all 40 minutes for the second straight game. He had 34 points and made a career-high six treys in an 83-72 victory over Southern California in the last game of the regular season on Saturday.
The Bruins shot 44.9 percent from the field and made 12 of 27 3-point attempts. Stanford shot 43.9 percent and made 9 of 22 shots from beyond the arc.
Welsh, a senior who is one of two Pac-12 players to average a double-double, became the 14th player in league history to reach 1,000 rebounds. He ended the game with 1,003.
Travis has 14 double-doubles, six in his past eight games.
Daejon Davis had 13 points and Dorian Pickens had 11 for Stanford. Davis was limited to 22 minutes because of foul trouble.
Holiday is on track to become the seventh Pac-12 player to average at least 20 points and five assists in a season. He would join Gary Payton (twice), Terrell Brandon, Damon Stoudamire, Jason Terry and Markelle Fultz, who did it last year at Washington.
--Field Level Media