Blue Devils wreak havoc for m. hoops
Team needs four wins to clinch high seed in NCAA West
By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Staff
With NCAA Tournament pairings just two short weeks away, the
UCLA men’s basketball team’s nationally televised loss to Duke
Sunday did little to bolster the Bruins’ hopes for a high seed in
the West Regional.
Had the defending national champions beaten the Blue Devils,
then beaten the Oregon and Washington schools to close the regular
season with eight consecutive wins, they probably would have
garnered the No. 2 seed in the west. Now, UCLA – which needs to win
three of its final four games to clinch its second consecutive
Pacific 10 Conference championship, will probably have to win all
four games to save a No. 3 or No. 4 seed.
Despite the setback, head coach Jim Harrick remained upbeat at
his weekly press conference Tuesday.
"We win four straight, and we’d probably be a three-seed," he
said. "I think we’d be a three or a four if we win the league.
"But there’s a lot of basketball left. If one of those hot-shot
teams gets beat in the first round of their tournament, who
knows?"
* * *
Harrick was wary of commenting on pulling Charles O’Bannon out
of the starting lineup Sunday; the junior forward spent the first
24 minutes of the game on the bench.
"It had nothing to do with rules and regulations of the NCAA; it
had nothing to do with drugs or anything like that," Harrick said.
"Charles isn’t a bad young guy, he just needed a reminder."
Harrick did say that the decision "probably" had something to do
with O’Bannon’s 21st birthday, which fell on the same day (Feb. 22)
that he sank the game winning shot against USC, and the head coach
acknowledged that the decision probably affected the outcome of the
game.
"The fact that we didn’t start Charles hurt us a little bit too,
because he’s a veteran and he would have gotten us a couple
rebounds and a couple baskets in that first 10 minutes when they
got away from us a little bit," Harrick said. "That made it very
difficult to catch up."
O’Bannon, who is now third on the team in scoring and rebounding
with 14.1 points and 6.0 boards per game, will be back in the
starting lineup Thursday night, when the Bruins meet Oregon State
in Corvallis.
* * *
UCLA, which saw its season field goal percentage slip to 52.6
following Sunday’s 42.9 percent clip at Duke, still boasts three
players at the top of the Pac-10 field goal percentage chart.
Jelani McCoy leads the conference with a 68.1 percent mark,
while J.R. Henderson is second at 57.4 percent and Kris Johnson is
third at 56.1 percent. O’Bannon is now fifth at 52.8.
As a team, the Bruins continue to lead the league in field goal
percentage, rebounds (38.7), rebound margin (6.9) and field goal
percentage defense (40.8), although they are still worst in
turnover margin (-4.1).
* * *
This week’s Pac-10 Player of the Week honors went to
California’s Ed Gray, who led the Bears to victories over both
Washington schools with 39 points, seven assists and five
rebounds.
Johnson, who replaced O’Bannon in the starting lineup Sunday,
was UCLA’s nomination.
Johnson led the Bruins in scoring in both games this week, with
17 points off the bench at USC and 21 points at Duke.
* * *
Statistic of the week, discovered by Rob Miech of the Pasadena
Star News: Should the Bruins defeat Oregon State Thursday, Harrick
would become only the third head coach in NCAA history to win 20 or
more games in each of his first eight years on the job.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Charles O’Bannon was pulled from Sunday’s starting lineup.
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