CATHERINE JAYIN JUN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Jason Kapono attempts to drive the ball past the
Villanova defense in the Bruins’ loss on Saturday.
Honors for Kapono, Barnes
Junior forward Jason Kapono was honored twice over this
week.
First, he and 19 others were announced as finalists for the
Naismith Award, which is the most prestigious individual honor in
college basketball.
Tuesday, Kapono, who is averaging 17.7 points per game, received
his second honor of the week when he was announced as First Team
All-District 15 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches,
along with Sam Clancy of USC, Jason Gardner and Luke Walton of
Arizona, and Jerry Green of UC Irvine.
Senior forward Matt Barnes, averaging 13.8 ppg, was named to the
second team.
“It feels great to be honored,” Kapono said.
“But I’m more worried about our team and winning the
Pac-10 right now.”
Where are you, Dijon and Andre?
Freshmen Dijon Thompson and Andre Patterson have both seen
significantly reduced playing time lately.
Thompson is averaging just 11.7 minutes per game over the past
six games, beginning with UCLA’s home game against Stanford.
Before Stanford, he was averaging 17.5 mpg.
Patterson’s drop-off has been just as bad. He is averaging
just 5.2 mpg over his last six games, and did not play at all
against Cal or USC.
Before Stanford, Patterson had played almost 10 mpg.
But head coach Steve Lavin said on Tuesday that he wants to get
more playing time to the freshmen.
“We want to get Dijon and Andre more minutes,” Lavin
said. “But it’s tough to get everyone enough minutes
when we have 10 quality guys.”
Splitting weekends
The Bruins can’t seem to win two games in one weekend.
For the last five weekends, UCLA has split their games. In fact,
the last time they won two games in a weekend was Jan. 4 and 6,
when the Washington schools visited Pauley Pavilion.
“We want to learn from the past but you have to let the
past go,” senior guard Rico Hines said. “We don’t
dwell on the past because then you don’t get any better. To
split weekends is tough. We were 2-2 and then we won nine straight.
We want to do that again.”
Odd odds
UCLA’s subpar performance over the past five weeks
hasn’t sat well in Las Vegas.
The Bruins are now 50-1 to win the national championship, down
from 25-1 in early January.
Arizona and Oregon are both 25-1, and USC and Stanford are 50-1.
Cal, the other team in the Pac-10 hunt, is 150-1. Duke, at 6-5, is
the favorite to win it all.
Compiled by Greg Schain, Daily Bruin reporter.