By RICHARD CROOME
Eagle Staff Writer

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ANAHEIM, Calif -- Texas A&M's Mark Turgeon called it.

The Aggies' first-year coach said the first team to 50 might win A&M's second-round game against UCLA. Unfortunately for A&M, he was right.

A&M led for a majority of the second half but fell to UCLA 53-49 on Saturday at the Honda Center.

Down 51-49 with 10 seconds left, A&M's Donald Sloan drove into the lane for a go-ahead basked but had his attempt blocked by Josh Shipp, giving the Bruins a berth into the Sweet 16.

Sloan finished with 12 points to lead A&M, doing most of his work in the paint.

"The guy had just made a shot, so we knew he was most likely going to take it," UCLA's Josh Shipp said. "He got in the key, and I was lucky enough to get there. I was able to get my hand on it and make the play."

Sloan's final attempt never got near the rim.

"We had a designed play set up to get our shooters open, and it wasn't [there]," Sloan said. "So I drove and went up to shoot a layup, and it was brought back down either by my force or somebody else's. Leave it up to other people to see, but it didn't go our way."

Replays confirmed Shipp had a hold of Sloan's right wrist on the block, but the officials let the play stand.

The block bounced to Russell Westbrook, who took it the length of the court for a slam just as the buzzer went off.

Point guard Darren Collison, who finished with a game-high 21 points, put the Bruins (33-3) up 49-47 with 55 seconds left.

Sloan countered with a difficult fadeaway jumper to tie it at 49, but Collison followed with the basket that put the Bruins over 50. He drove right for a second straight time and layed the ball in high off the glass with 10 seconds left.

"That was vintage Darren Collison, driving down the lane, going right, high off the glass, kissing it in," UCLA coach Ben Howland said. "The second one was really a blessing because that thing kind of rolled in for us."

A&M called a timeout, and Turgeon drew up a play for the win.

"Sloan went crazy on the play, but we had a 3 set up for Dominique [Kirk] using Josh [Carter] as a decoy," Turgeon said. "I was watching the action, and all of sudden I saw this blur coming by, and I saw him get bumped. I don't know if you'll be able to see it. They'll show it a thousand times on TV.

"I was going for the 3. I was going to run out of here with a one-point win."

The Bruins will play the winner of Sunday's Western Kentucky-San Diego game next week in Phoenix.

Ninth-seeded A&M (25-11) led or kept the game tied for 19 minutes of the second half. The Aggies led 36-26 after Carter made a 3-pointer, a jumper, blocked a shot and took a charge.

"I feel like we were in control of the whole game," Turgeon said. "I thought we were always one step ahead, whether it was the ball-screen action or doubling the post."

But then Kevin Love took over, primarily on defense, blocking seven shots in the second half. That helped the Bruins hold the Aggies without a field goal for 9 minutes.

Love finished with 19 points, including two fadeaway jumpers late. The first tied the game at 47-47 and the second gave the Bruins their first lead since 24-23.

The Pac 10 Player of the Year also had a game-high 11 rebounds.

Dominque Kirk only had two points in his final game but did pull down eight rebounds. Senior Joseph Jones finished with six points and six boards.

Sloan's personal 6-0 run put the Aggies up 27-24 with just over a minute to go in the first half.

Up until that time the Aggies were doing all they could to keep up with Kevin Love and Darren Collison, who had 22 of the Bruins' first 26 points.

Collison was a perfect 4 for 4 from behind the arc, keeping the Bruins ahead for most of the first half.

A&M's Bryan Davis matched Collison's 3-point percentage by making all four of his shots from inside the paint.

DeAndre Jordan was up to the challenge of facing his good friend Love, laying in all three shots he took, two from behind the basket.

Sloan was getting the points, but Derrick Roland played just as big a part late, shutting down Collison over the final 5 minutes and forcing a couple of turnovers.

Collison made his last 3 with just over 6 minutes to play in the first half, and the Bruins went scoreless from the floor from that point until halftime. Collison's two free throws on the Aggies' seventh team foul were the only UCLA points during that period and closed the gap to 27-26, but then Jordan scored inside to stretch the Aggies' lead.

UCLA's biggest edge was 15-9 at the 12:02 mark of the first half. At that time, Love had seven points and Collison six.

Josh Carter, who matched his career high with 26 against BYU to get the Aggies into the second round, was 1 for 3 in the first half and sat the final few minutes until the break after picking up his second foul.

• Richard Croome's e-mail address is richard.croome@theeagle.com.

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