UCLA withstands loss of Tyler Bilodeau to beat Michigan State

CHICAGO – They’re not in East Lansing anymore.Not even close.A month after their season sank to unfathomable depths with a road loss to Michigan State as part of back-to-back defeats by 53 points, the UCLA Bruins made an emphatic rebuttal.Look at us now.They’re on a season-high winning streak after losing their leading scorer and holding off a spirited comeback from the Spartans.Tyler Bilodeau went down and his sixth-seeded team rose for a wild 88-84 victory in a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal on Friday night at the United Center.After dispatching the third-seeded Spartans, who had beaten them by 23 points in February, the Bruins will face seventh-seeded Purdue in a semifinal on Saturday afternoon.UCLA (23-10) has won four games in a row after Trent Perry made six free throws in the final 36 seconds and Donovan Dent stole an inbounds pass and held the ball in celebration as the clock ran out.“I really wanted to redeem myself from the first time we played,” Dent said.

“I think we all did.We didn’t really show the our full selves, and we went there and got embarrassed.

“Coming into the game tonight, we all got fired up.Coach got us fired up in the shootaround.

These are the type of games you have to win.These are the heavyweight matchups we talk about in the preseason, and you’ve got to come out and perform.”The rest of the game almost seemed secondary when Bilodeau went down under the basket and clutched his right knee in agony with 3½ minutes left in the first half.Bilodeau needed help getting off the court but appeared to be placing some weight on his leg on the way to the locker room.

He waved to fans when he walked back out from the locker room before the start of the second half, moving without any discernible discomfort even though his knee was heavily wrapped.He was expected to be further evaluated after the game.“It would take literally a miracle for him to play [Saturday], meaning that I would let him play,” Cronin said.“Righ...