PHOENIX, Az. -- Last night's West Region Sweet 16 match-up between top seed UCLA and No. 12 seed Western Kentucky pitted the game's most storied program against an overachieving mid-major and not surprisingly the Bruins came away with an 88-78 victory at The U.S. Airways Center to advance to the Elite Eight for the third consecutive season.

It wasn't easy, though, as the Hilltoppers were resiliant and used a helter-skelter full-court press in the second half to cut a 21-point half-time deficit down to four at 63-59 with 5:39 to play . But they couldn't get it any closer as it seemed like at that point they ran out of gas after using so much energy to get back into the game.

UCLA (34-3) will play Xavier (30-6) Saturday at 6:40 (EST) for a chance to advance to the Final Four for the third consecutive time and 18th time in school history.

And like many of the great UCLA teams of the past, this one is led by a superstar post player in 6-foot-10 freshman Kevin Love. Love, who averaged 17.3 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, was the Pac-10 player of the year and last night he showed why as he scored 29 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in the victory.

UCLA also got a huge game from reserve forward James Keefe, who scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Love also seemed to come up with the key baskets in the second half any time the Bruins needed to squash any comeback thoughts by the Hilltoppers.

The Hilltoppers (29-7), who won the Sun Belt Conference tournament championship, were hoping to make a game of it and looked like they might be able to compete with the Bruins early as the pulled to within 9-8 on 3-pointer by Courtney Lee.

Western Kentucky, which became the first team this NCAA Tournament to score more than 50 points on the Bruins, was then able to use a couple of 3-pointers to hang around a little longer and the game stood tied at 13-13 with 12 minutes to play before the half.

But at that point the Bruins seemed to turn their intensity level up a notch and they leaned on their bread-and-butter -- stifling defense -- to grind on the Hilltoppers during an impressive 17-2 run over the next eight minutes. The Bruins led 30-15 at that point and would extend their lead to 41-20 by the half.

Western Kentucky then made things a little more interesting as they came out after half-time and scored the first four points and began to make an impressive run, thanks mostly due to the Bruins inability to handle the press.

The Hilltoppers got to within 15 -- at 45-30 with about 17 minutes to play -- and they pulled to within 56-47 at the 9:47 mark on a two free throws by Tyrone Brazleton, but on the next possession Love got an offensive rebound, was fouled and made both free throws to push the lead back to double figures.

Western Kentucky had one more run in them -- and pulled to within four -- but they missed two 3-point attempts that would have pulled them to within one and the Bruins pulled away again.

The "game over" shot came with 4:30 to play when UCLA's Josh Shipp hit a long 3-pointer as the shot-clock was set to expire that pushed the Bruins lead to 68-59.