LOS ANGELES — Coming off its first loss of the early season, the UCLA men's basketball team briefly found its shooting touch before getting sloppy with the ball and playing disjointed for stretches en route to a 17-point halftime lead.

The effort, though, was the most encouraging takeaway Monday night for Bruins head coach Mick Cronin.

The Bruins forced 28 turnovers in a 71-40 nonconference win over Boston University at Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA (2-1), which was without starting point guard Dylan Andrews, had just four of its 15 turnovers after halftime and had three players score in double figures. Wings Eric Dailey Jr. and Lazar Stefanovic, who started in place of Andrews, had a game-high 13 points apiece and guard Sebastian Mack chipped in 12 off the bench.

Defensively, guard Kobe Johnson had a game-high four steals and Dailey added three for UCLA, which owned a 36-12 advantage in points off turnovers.

Andrews is listed as day-to-day with a left groin injury.

Boston (0-3) shot just 30.4% (14 of 46) from the field and were led by guard Kyrone Alexander's 10 points. No other Terriers scored in double figures.

The Bruins will return to action Friday for a nonconference contest against Lehigh. Tipoff at Pauley Pavilion is scheduled for 7 p.m.

The Bruins opened the game active defensively as part of a 16-5 run.

Back-to-back sequences were the highlight. First, Skyy Clark collected a steal he finished off by diving for a loose ball that led to score on the other end.

Then, Johnson hustled down for a deflection in the corner and William Kyle III cleaned the defensive boards to end the possession, ran the floor and was found open under the basket for a dunk off a feed in transition from Trent Perry.

A steal by Dailey and his assist to Clark for a layup capped the spurt and forced a Terriers timeout at the 13:29 mark.

UCLA had issues scoring and taking care of the ball past the midway point of the first half.

The Bruins went 5 minutes, 36 seconds without a made field goal as the Terriers cut the deficit to 28-17 on Michael McNair's dunk with 4:11 left in the half.

UCLA ended the 7-minute, 29-second drought after Kyle blocked a shot and ran back for a putback dunk off a missed Mack layup to make it 32-19.

That ignited a 9-3 run capped by a Kyle dunk before the buzzer to close the half and send the Bruins into the locker room with a 39-22 lead.

UCLA, which had 17 points off turnovers in the first half, quickly tacked on seven more within the first four minutes of the second half as part of a 9-0 run to begin putting the game away.

It wasn't a pretty night by any means from the 3-point line, but Stefanovic was the lone bright spot after making 3 of 5 from beyond the arc.

Cronin's favorite statistic is one not in any box score: deflections.

Clark had 16 of the team's season-high 59 deflections. Cronin said it's one off the single-game record for any player he's coached.

Clark was all over the place, getting in passing lanes and diving for any loose ball. Cronin added that the team made an effort to dive for more loose balls in this game than any previous game, exhibition or scrimmage combined.

Kyle's defense-to-offense sequence to end the Bruins' first-half drought from the field was a needed wake-up call:

The result was never in doubt, with the talent discrepancy too much for it to ever be a contest.

But, simply, the Bruins got after it on defense and hustled for a 15-0 advantage in second-chance points.

There's still work to be done on the boards, but reserve center Aday Mara was again a bright spot by leading the team with seven rebounds in his 10-plus minutes.

Starters

PG Skyy Clark: 4 pts on 1/3 FGs, 2 assts, 1 TO

G Lazar Stefanovic: 13 pts on 4/7 FGs (3/5 3-ptrs), 1 asst, 1 stl

G Kobe Johnson: 6 pts on 3/7 FGs, 4 rebs, 4 assts, 4 stls

G/F Eric Dailey Jr.: 13 pts on 4/10 FGs, 5 rebs, 3 stls

F Tyler Bilodeau: 6 pts on 3/8 FGs, 3 rebs, 1 stl

Bench

G Sebastian Mack: 12 pts on 3/5 FGs (1/2 3-ptrs), 2 stls

C Aday Mara: 7 pts on 2/6 FGs, 7 rebs, 1 blk

F/C William Kyle III: 7 pts on 3/4 FGs, 6 rebs, 1 blk