UCLA 68; Arizona 66

It's funny. A fan base can get so used to things going their way that they don't even realize what little bitches they become when the tide starts to turn. For two and a half decades, Arizona has been led by one of college basketball's Eddie Haskells. Mike Kzysrcksvisklseiski is the same way. These are coaches who seem so friendly and gentle in interviews and when away from the court, but who spend approximately 39:55 of a 40 minute game berating officials and whining like children. In their defense, it works. For years, each team has gotten virtually every call. Hell, Lute didn't even pick up a technical when he ran across the floor to call Lucas Johnson "crazy" in 2000. And somehow they had no problem with the officiating the regional final that season when six Illinois players fouled out, and no Wildcat had more than three fouls.

But times change, coaches change, and standards are replaced. For the seventh consecutive time, UCLA defeated Arizona, despite a great performance from Jordan Hill, and a "better than he usually does against UCLA" performance from Chase Buddinger. It wasn't enough to overcome 24 and 15 from Kevin Love (10-11 from the free throw line), and 16 points from Darren Collison, who continues to be hot from long range (2-3 in this one).

In a fairly surprising development, Arizona got more minutes, and more production, from its bench than UCLA. Part, perhaps most, of that was due to foul trouble, particularly from starter Fendi Onobun, who lasted only 13 minutes before fouling out. Jamelle Horne also struggled with foul trouble, and Jordan Hill caught the bug in the second half.

On the other side, every Bruin starter played at least 33 minutes. What looked like a deep bench at the beginning of the season has been dramatically shortened, and that could cause problems for the Bruins down the stretch. Chace Stanback has been somewhat disappointing in that regard. Note that I'm in no way calling him a bust. Very few freshman come in and contribute right away, but the Bruins benefited the last two years from unexpected contributions from Darren Collison and Russel Westbrook. Both of those players have proven that their freshman contributions were no flukes. They're very special players, and not everyone can bring what they've brought. But of all the bench guys, I figured Stanback might be the guy who could give them a five minute shot in the arm from game to game, but it never materialized. Nikola Dragovic has been a bit of disappointment as well. If anyone could have replaced Mike Roll's shooting, a desperate need for this team, Dragovic figured to be the guy, but he's struggled with his shot all year.

McKale is never an easy place to leave victorious, but Bruins managed to do it yet again, and now they'll fight for a number one seed this week at home against the Bay Area schools. Beat Stanford and they clinch the Pac 10 title. Lose, and they may not be the top seed in the conference tournament. And if they win that game, they absolutely cannot afford a let-down against Berkeley on Saturday. The West Coast road to the Final Four is theirs for the taking. Now they just need to get it done on the court.

Domination

That, folks, was a slaughter. UCLA simply stepped on the gas from the very beginning, and never let up. It's the type of performance that makes an impression on a national audience. Kevin Love was exceptional, and Arizona simply doesn't have anyone who can guard Russell Westbrook. He made Chase Buddinger look like a chump tonight.

Hopefully LRMAM will be OK. Kind of a nasty turn of the ankle there near the end.

This was simply a great team playing at their best against a good team playing considerably less than their best. But make no mistake, UCLA is better right now at virtually every position, and they have a much better coach. McKale will be a tough place to play in a few weeks, but for now, there's not much question who the class of the Pac 10 is.

And if you're looking for the Wildcats, you might want to check somewhere out behind this:

UCLA 81; Arizona 66

While Jordan Farmar gets his minutes in the NBA, Darren Collison has turned himself into UCLA's best point guard since Earl Watson, and maybe their best point guard since Tyus Edney. Collison was tremendous today, and only a tremendous performance could overshadow the resurgence of Josh Shipp, who played his best game in months. Collison added 17 points to go along with 15, and that's not a typo, 15 assists against only two turnovers. It was a Deron Williams like performance. 15 of his 17 points came from beyond the arc on 5-7 shooting from three, including, for the second straight week, an absolute dagger as the shot clock expired. He actually did it twice, once to open the second half, and again to give the Bruins a 10 point lead with just over seven minutes to play.

As for Shipp, all he did was toss in 24 points to go along with four rebounds and two steals. Shipp is a scorer, and UCLA needs him to score. Today he brought it. He had three dunks, and two three pointers, and that's what he needs to do for UCLA to go deep into the post-season. He makes Collison and Aaron Afflalo much better when he shoulders his portion of the scoring load. Afflalo had another ho-hum 15 point game, and though he didn't shoot for a very impressive percentage, he once against seemed to make big shots, including three at the end of the shot clock. It was contagious, as not only Collison followed suit, but so did Michael Roll and LRMAM, who's three pointer at the buzzer pushed the lead to 14 with about 2:30 to play, and really put the game away.

For the second straight game UCLA turned up the defense in the second half. Where Arizona found an extra gear to pull the game back in the first half, UCLA completely denied them the opportunity to do so in the second half. And they absolutely took Ivan Radenovic out of the game. I'll admit, I was worried that he'd bring them back. He's usually lights out for 30 minutes, then invisible for the last 10. After being invisible for the first 30 today, I thought he'd take over in the last 10, but he was a real disappointment for Arizona. On the other hand, that Jordan Hill is going to be very good. I really liked his poise inside, and he's a terrific athlete for his size. He's going to be a force next year, and depending on how long he stays, he's going to be a factor in conference play for a while.

Arizona spent a good portion of the game in the zone defense. I understand that the Bruins have looked uncomfortable against zone defenses this season, though more often than not, they go on to win games against teams that play zones. Now, I'm no basketball expert, but it seems like a team would play zone for a number of reasons, among the most obvious being:

1. Protect a big man who's in foul trouble;
   
2. It make it tougher to go inside, so if you're playing a team with a very good inside presence, it takes them out of their game;
   
3. Forces your opponent to beat you with their guards;
   
4. Slows the tempo, and frustrates an up tempo opponent.

Clearly 1) and 4) aren't really concerns for Arizona. Basically, a zone defense forces the ball into the hands of your opponents guards and wings.

Well, if teams want to keep challenging UCLA to make Shipp, Collison, and Afflalo beat them, then hell, more power to 'em! Those three are UCLA's three best players. By all means, force them to make those guys beat you.

And of course, please play a zone when you're down by 10 with 3+ minutes to go. Worst case scenario for your opponent is that they take 35 seconds off the clock and still have a 10 point lead. At least in man to man, you make your opponent work to run down the clock, or maybe you get a steal, or force a quick shot. That strategy made no sense to me today.

Arizona still strikes me as a team that's loaded with good players, though I don't think they've been a very good "team" this year. Still, I think they could do damage in the tournament, much like the UCLA team that got into the tournament as an 8 seed and took out top seeded Cincinnati in 2002. I wouldn't want to see them in my bracket as a low seed that I'd have to meet in the first or second round. They still don't play defense, and I've never been a fan of Shakur's decision making, but they're still very talented and athletic, and they can cause a lot of matchup problems for a good but less than complete team.

One tough road trip to go in the Northwest. UC Berkeley and Stanford come south next week before the Bruins finish up in Washington. I'm not all that concerned about Stanford and Berkeley, but Washington State is obviously very good, and Washington, like Arizona, has enough talent to make anyone look bad on a given night, though they haven't had success doing that this year. The Bruins lead the Cougars by one in the Pac 10, but Wazzu still has to travel to Oregon before facing the L.A. schools. UCLA has the upper hand in the quest to secure its second straight conference championship.

Thank God for Darren Collison

Is there any question now why UCLA lost against West Virginia? Aaron Afflalo had the bigger numbers last night (and take nothing away from Aaron, who played a very fine game), but Darren Collison was the difference in last night's 67-61 victory at Arizona State.

With 11 minutes to go, the Bruins trailed by 10 points. They had scored five points in the half to that point, both coming on jump shots by Michael Roll. UCLA got four points in one possession on a layup by Alfred Aboya --> foul --> missed free throw --> offensive rebound --> dunk by Josh Shipp. That started an 18-2 Bruins run, and directly preceded 11 straight points from Collison, including three 3-pointers. After an Afflalo three pointer capped the run, putting the Bruins up by six, it became a free throw fest for UCLA, and they got the job done at the line to preserve the victory.

Collison's 18 points were a career high, but the difference in the game was the lift he gave the Bruins during that run. One of those threes came as the shot clock expired, and it gave the Bruins the lead. What could have been, SHOULD have been a fruitless possession, turned into a three point lead, and the Bruins never looked back.

Josh Shipp was disappointing, and it's becoming a trend. His only field goal was the dunk, although he did hit some big free throws down the stretch, and added 6 assists. But he was 1-5 from the field, with three rebounds and four turnovers. Maybe he's not completely healthy. Maybe his hip is bothering him. But he needs to step up. I hope he wasn't just looking past this game. If he can't get up for a game against his brother, that's not a good sign.

Still, the Bruins got back on the winning track. ASU is not very good, but they aren't awful, despite their winless Pac 10 season to this point. The Pac 10 is very good, and they've lost a ton of very close games. But the Bruins are going to need to play much better to beat an Arizona team that's much better than it has shown this season. And with the season they've had, nothing would lift their spirits more than a win over UCLA. Coming off their loss to U$C, they're going to be very hungry.

Wisconsin 71; Illinois 64 and Arizona 69; UCLA 73

Big Ten

Pretty predictable result. Quite frankly, I thought Wisconsin would roll, and Illinois made it a lot closer than I expected. They were victimized by some poor officiating, two calls in particular, but even more so by their own inability to make free throws. They shot only 60% from the line, and it seemed like every time it mattered, they could never do any better than one out of two. That was huge down the stretch.

The refs didn't help. They took two points off the board for Illinois when Brian Randle jumped to catch an entry pass and bounced to the rim for the basket and the foul. The ref inexplicably ruled that the foul was on the floor, which was interesting considering he was on the floor for about a tenth of a second. Later, with Wisconsin leading by only two and under a minute to go, Marcus Landry of Wisconsin drove the basket and ran over Brian Randle for an offensive foul. Only, somehow the basket was allowed to count. He rose, hit Randle, released the ball, yet still got credit for the basket instead of having waved off. A two point lead was stretched to four, Randle made only one of two, and that was that.

Good game for Sean Pruitt who had 19 and 14 against only one turnover. Another 0-5 for Jamar Smith, who let's face it, if this is all due to his ankles, he needs to be out of the lineup until he's healthy. On his last few shots, he missed everything. It's been really ugly, and either way, he's hurting the team right now. He's trying hard, but he just doesn't have it. Randle finished with 8 points, and seemed to lift the Illini when he started to assert himself down the stretch. He's turning into a poor man's Frank Williams. He sit out the first 30 minutes, and in the last 10 minutes, he makes you think "where the hell was he in the first 30 minutes?!" Oh well, the descent continues.

Pac 10

Boy is there egg on my face after I said Arizona would probably win. I forgot that they're loaded with guys who a) can't play defense, and b) struggle against teams that actually can play defense (UCLA, U$C, Wazzu....guess who three of Arizona's losses have come against?). A certain Cat fan once said "Defense is overrated; especially if you shoot 60% from the field." I've really only watched Arizona's last three games (48% against Oregon, 38% against U$C, and 39% against UCLA) so I guess I would have to watch a team that consistently shoots 60% to test that theory. Keep in mind that UCLA was missing its best interior defender as well.

Mustapha Shakur (11 points - six of which came in garbage time when the game had already been decided, 8 assists, 3 turnovers) showed why after four years, he remains one of the most overrated point guards in college basketball, as he was pretty much completely owned by a sophomore who wasn't supposed to be anything more than a backup this season (Collison had 14, 7, and 2). Juwann McLellan has gotten so bad that Lute is wishing he had kicked off a kid earlier in the season only so that he could reinstate him to replace McLellan. I'll give credit to Ivan Radenovic, who I actually noticed in the second half for the first time in his four years at Arizona.

A lot has been made of UCLA's "struggles" against zone defenses. Teams play zone defenses in an effort to make it difficult to get the ball inside (which often helps protect their own big men from foul trouble). The idea is to force your opponent into jump shots, and make the guards beat you. If teams want to play a style that dares Collison, Afflalo, Roll, Westbrook, and occasionally Shipp to beat them, well, good luck with that.

Deserving of recognition for UCLA:

• Alfred Aboya was only 1-4 from the field, but he grabbed 11 rebounds, including six on the offensive end, and made all of his free throws.
• Michael Roll was only 3-9 from beyond arc, but finished with 13 points and a nice assist on the interior after breaking down the defense.
• And of course, Aaron Afflalo was the player of the game yet again, going 9-14, including 3-6 from three, for 22 points. In addition, he held down Marcus Williams to 11 points., who finished with 11 points 4-12 shooting, and turned the ball over four times.
  

Not really a must win for UCLA, but it keeps them atop the conference standings along with Oregon, who is clearly the no worse than the second best team in the conference, and can prove they may very well be the best at Pauley next month. And of course, it's always good to see crybaby Lute lose again. It's off the Bay Area next week for two tough games against good teams from Cal and Stanford. It's another solid test from a conference that's loaded with good teams.