Tyler Bilodeau scored 21 points and Donovan Dent recorded the first triple-double in Big Ten tournament history, leading sixth-seeded UCLA to a 72-59 victory over 14th-seeded Rutgers in a third-round matchup on Thursday in Chicago.
Dent finished with 12 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds while becoming the fifth player in Bruins history to post a triple double. Trent Perry also had 12 points and Eric Dailey Jr. added 10 for UCLA (22-10), which won for the fifth time in six games.
The Bruins will face third-seeded and eighth-ranked Michigan State in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Lino Mark put up 17 points as the lone double-digit scorer for Rutgers (14-19), which had a two-game winning streak halted.
Legendary Bill Walton (1973), Jelani McCoy (1995), Toby Bailey (1995) and Kyle Anderson (2013) are the other Bruins to have a triple-double.
UCLA made 38.3% of its field-goal attempts, including 7 of 23 (30.4%) from 3-point range. The Bruins held a 40-30 rebounding advantage.
The Scarlet Knights connected on 37.9% of their shots and were 6 of 19 (31.6%) from behind the arc.
UCLA led by three early in the second half before using a 14-2 spurt to open up a 46-31 lead on Dent’s basket with 15:18 remaining.
A mammoth left-handed dunk by Xavier Booker gave the Bruins a 51-38 lead just before the midway point of the second half.
The Scarlet Knights moved within single digits when Dylan Grant drained a trey to cut UCLA’s lead to 57-48 with 5:51 remaining.
A short time later, Bilodeau made four free throws in a span of 15 seconds and the Bruins led 63-50 with 4:24 remaining.
Mark made consecutive baskets for Rutgers before airballing a 3-point attempt. The ball caromed out to Dent for his 10th board to wrap up the triple-double.
On the other end, Dent fed Bilodeau for a trey to make it 66-54 with 2:33 remaining as UCLA closed it out.
Both teams shot 31% from the field in the first half, but the Bruins led 30-24 due to 8-of-9 free-throw shooting.
UCLA trailed by one before going on a 12-2 run to take a 23-14 lead on Bilodeau’s two free throws. Rutgers was within three later in the half before the Bruins took the six-point lead into the break.
