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UCLA keeps up pressure, dominates Xavier


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But against Xavier they reverted to the form that made them a No. 1 seed.

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute had 13 points and 13 rebounds and Darren Collison added 19 points for UCLA, which shot 53.8 percent from the floor and won its 14th straight.

Derrick Brown had 13 points for Xavier.

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This matched Xavier’s deepest foray into the NCAA brackets. The Musketeers had reached the regional final once before, in 2004.

Early on, Xavier looked as if it might be able to hang with UCLA. After turning the ball over a season-high 19 times in the third round, the Bruins had 10 turnovers in the first half on Saturday.

But the Musketeers only scored two points off those turnovers — and it cost them when UCLA finally settled down.

Leading 24-20, the Bruins closed the first half on a 9-4 run. The leader of the charge was Mbah a Moute, who has been slowed by a sprained ankle.

Mbah a Moute scored five straight points, all of them as a result of some gritty work on the offensive boards.

“All I can tell you is I didn’t have any pain,” Mbah a Moute said.

Then Collison dribbled down the clock and hit a jumper over Stanley Burrell, the Atlantic 10’s Defensive Player of the Year, to send the Bruins into the dressing room with a 33-24 lead.

The biggest bucket may have come when Love pulled down an offensive rebound on a missed free throw, then fired the ball to Collison loitering beyond the arc. Collison hit the 3-pointer and UCLA led 43-28.

A few minutes later, Love buried a 3-pointer and the Bruins led by 20.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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