St. Mary's kicked off the 14th Annual John R. Wooden Classic presented by Toyo Tires with a 69-64 victory over San Diego State.

Tron Smith had a game-high 20 points for St. Mary's in their 69-64 win.

Led by senior guard Tron Smith, who scored 16 of his game-high 20 points in the second half, the Gaels erased a 29-24 halftime deficit to improve their undefeated record to 7-0 on the season. Gaels freshman guard Patrick Mills added 15 points while junior Diamon Simpson netted a double-double with 13 points and 16 rebounds in the game.

“To come in here and play a good team like San Diego State and come out on top feels great,” St. Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett said. “I told our guys this is like [the NCAA Tournament] a little bit. You play in an arena that’s this big. There was pressure there we haven’t felt so far this year.”

St. Mary’s struggled at Honda Center in the first half, shooting 33.3 percent from the field and going on a 5:58 scoreless stretch that began with 8:55 left in the half. The second half was a different story for the Gaels and a big part of that came from the play of Smith and Mills, who combined for 28 of the team’s 45 second half points.

Lorenzo Wade had 11 points and four rebounds for San Diego State in the loss.

“Tron Smith did a great job of coming out and being very aggressive in the second half,” said San Diego State junior forward Lorenzo Wade, who had 11 points in the game. “Mills did an excellent job of running his team.”

Smith did most of his damage from the free throw line, where he converted on 10-of-14 attempts.

“In the second half, everybody figured it out and picked their play up,” Smith said. “I just tried to calm everybody down, get good penetration and look for my teammates.”

Missed opportunities from the free throw line plagued San Diego State, as the Aztecs shot 8-of-18 from the charity stripe in the game.

“You’re not going to win if you don’t make free throws,” Fisher said. “When you get there, you have to be able to make them.”

Alongside John R. Wooden, St. Mary's holds up the winner's trophy after their victory in game one.

Kelvin Davis paced the way for San Diego State in the game with a team-high 19 points and the junior guard said after the game that the team can use the loss as a positive the rest of the season.

“We take this as a loss but as a plus for us to learn,” Davis said. “It hurts a lot, but I’d rather have this loss right now than later in the season.”

UCLA junior Josh Shipp netted 15 points in the win for the Bruins.

“It really was a great atmosphere today. It felt like an NCAA tournament game,” UCLA head coach Ben Howland said. “It’s always an honor to be in this tournament, first and foremost because it’s in Coach’s name. To be involved in anything that his hands are on is truly an honor for me and for our program. I just can’t emphasize that enough or express it any better. It’s incredible.”

Davidson (3-5) stormed out to a 32-14 lead with 6:17 remaining in the first half, but they were unable to sustain the momentum in the game, as UCLA (8-1) outscored the Wildcats 61-31 the rest of the way.

“We had the huge deficit. They came out and just hit three after three against us,” Howland said. “That’s two games in a row now that we’ve fallen behind by 16 and 18. We’d like to avoid that in the future. Overall, I’m pretty pleased the way we came back.”

After trailing Davidson 32-14 with 6:17 left in the first half, UCLA outscored the Wildcats 61-31 the rest of the game.

Critical to the Bruins’ turnaround was the defensive effort by the team and in particular sophomore guard Russell Westbrook, who drew the difficult task of guarding Wildcats sophomore star Stephen Curry, who entered the game averaging 26 points per contest.

Curry found buckets harder to come by against the Bruins, as the 6-foot-3 guard shot 6-for-19 in the game with a team-high 15 points under the relenting pressure of Westbrook.

“Westbrook contested a lot of shots and got my balance and footwork off,” Curry said. “He did a great job of chasing me all game and making it tough for me to get easy looks.”

Junior forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute led the way for the Bruins with a game-high 21 points on 7-for-10 shooting while also adding eight rebounds.

“My teammates did a good job of attacking them,” Mbah a Moute said. “I was focused on finishing under the basket. Also, I just had open shots and I knocked them down.”

In his third game back from a sprained left knee, UCLA's Darren Collison tallied 10 points in 36 minutes against Davidson.

While fighting through some early foul trouble, highly-touted freshman center Kevin Love chipped in with 12 points and 12 rebounds during 22 minutes of play for his fifth double-double of the season.

“I only played 22 minutes, but I felt I was productive,” Love said. “We played a great game and came out with a big win.”

With the win, the Bruins have now won their last three appearances in the Wooden Classic dating back to 2005.
“We knew that this was going to be a very difficult team to play,” Howland said. “I’m just really glad we came out of here with a win.”