LOS ANGELES — This is the Donovan Dent that Mick Cronin had in mind all along.
This was the guy who was an honorable mention All-America selection and the Mountain West Conference Player of the Year last season at New Mexico, before opting to return home to Southern California to play his senior year.
This was the guy who averaged 20.4 points, 6.4 assists and 1.4 steals in 35.3 minutes per game for the Lobos last season.
But this wasn’t the guy who struggled earlier this season to the point that Cronin had to read him the riot act, as he has been known to do. Dent had some high-scoring games early – 21 against Eastern Washington, 20 against Arizona State, 25 at Iowa at the start of January – but he was struggling for consistency.
He has found some of that consistency over the past 10 games. And after bailing out the Bruins with an end-to-end, Tyus Edney-esque dash for the winning basket to beat No. 10 Illinois in overtime on Saturday night, this particular set of numbers told a story of their own in UCLA’s 81-62 triumph over USC on Tuesday night.
Eye-popping numbers, really. In UCLA’s first 26 games, 25 of which Dent started, he shot 8 for 48 from 3-point range (16.7%). Tuesday night in the first half he was 4 for 4 from behind the arc. He finished 5 for 6 on 3-point attempts, on a night when he made 10 of 16 shots overall, scored 30 points, passed for seven assists and did not commit a turnover in 37:17 of playing time.
“The reason I was shooting so many threes, they were just giving them to me” because of the particular defensive scheme the Trojans were using, he said. “I mean, I was just sitting back taking my time and shooting the shot.”
And if your best player is at his best, everyone else looks better, right?
“Nobody’s going anywhere in March without their best players playing well,” Cronin said Tuesday night. “No one … I mean, in baseball you can win, 1-0. Somebody won a Super Bowl, 6-0. I think Trent Dilfer was the quarterback.”
(Fact check: Dilfer played in one Super Bowl, XXXV, and his Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants, 34-7.)
“But in hoops you can’t do it,” Cronin continued. “When you go high-level team vs. high-level team, somebody’s got to put it in the hole. So your best players, Donovan being one of ours, have to play well. Now, Eric (Dailey Jr., who finished with one point and one rebound in 18:13) couldn’t get it going tonight. It was not a good night for Eric. But Eric’s a great player, so we didn’t need it tonight because Donovan stepped up.
“You know, it can’t be Tyler Bilodeau and pray for rain.”
And perhaps this is the more impressive stat: In the last two games Dent has 22 assists and no turnovers.
“He’s doing his thing and I’m very proud for him,” guard Trent Perry said. “He’s going to find me, and I always trust him that he’s going to find me when I’m open. But today it was his night, and I just had to lock down (the) defensive end and let him go to work.”
Dent was asked if he felt he had reached another level of play as March approaches and the games carry greater importance.
“I mean, this is the best time to get (hot),” he said. “I was struggling early in the season. So for me, I’m in a groove right now, I feel like (that) would be huge for our team and huge for myself.
“When you have that type of energy and you come out and hit some shots early, it just feeds into everything. It’s like you see the rim at a different size at that point. Everything was flowing for me, and I was just going good.”
So what does go through a guy’s mind when he gets on this kind of heater?
“I just feel proud,” he said. “Like all your hard work in the gym, all the hours people don’t see for you to get in a groove like this, like it’s just what you work out for. It’s what you practice for. It’s what you do everything for, so like it just feels amazing, like, you just want to keep going.”
Maybe this was the scenario Dent was thinking about when he returned to SoCal. He had starred here for Corona Centennial High, winning several outstanding player accolades while leading the Huskies to a 33-1 record and the 2022 CIF State Open Division title as a senior.
And Tuesday night was almost certainly the best Pauley Pavilion atmosphere of the year, a mostly full house (announced attendance was 13,659) and a completely full student section. Maybe the 8 p.m. tipoff was a factor. College students do stay up late, you know.
And instead of railing about performing better – though Cronin won’t ever neglect that subject when his play dips – now his coach can give him grief about his hometown. He used the “truck stop” expression, the one that the late Bill Walton made famous, to describe Riverside, where Dent was born.
Then again, Cronin might want to be careful about that. This columnist grew up there, too and still calls the Inland Empire home, and those barbs do not and will not go unchallenged.
“Ah, he just be chatting,” Dent said. “He’s just trying to get a little clip. Just ignore him. Riverside’s beautiful. He knows it.”
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