All season long, Donovan Dent has been knocked for his shooting.
Can’t make 3-pointers. Can’t make free throws. Struggles to finish at the rim.
With each shot that fell through the net against his new archrival Tuesday night, the UCLA point guard toppled each of those notions one by one.
Continually pulling up with confidence from beyond the arc, Dent’s four 3-pointers in the first half doubled his previous high for any game this season.
He was just getting started on the way to leading the Bruins to an 81-62 victory over USC before the first sellout crowd in exactly two years inside Pauley Pavilion.
Three days after his game-winning coast-to-coast layup, Dent repeatedly thrilled the 13,659 fans with his epic shooting display. His five 3-pointers weren’t far off the eight he had made all season before Tuesday.
Dent’s can’t-miss moment came when he flung up a 30-footer at the end of the shot clock midway through the second half. It went in. Dent finished with a season-high 30 points while making 10 of 16 shots and five of six 3-pointers. He also made five of six free throws to go with seven assists and no turnovers for the Bruins (19-9 overall, 11-6 Big Ten).
Dent became the first UCLA player to score 30 points against the Trojans since Aaron Holiday tallied 34 in March 2018.
It was UCLA’s third consecutive victory in the crosstown rivalry and might have portended plenty of March promise if Dent can sustain this sort of touch. Entering the game, he had made just 16.7 percent of his 3-pointers and 62.7 percent of his free throws.
In what amounted to a 3-point contest in the first half, Dent upstaged USC’s Chad Baker-Mazara when Dent swished a step-back jumper over the outstretched arms of 7-foot-5 center Gabe Dynes at the halftime buzzer, giving him 19 points on six-for-nine shooting.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
