Basketball guard “˜out of sync’ in Arizona
game TUCSON, Ariz. “”mdash; UCLA guard Brian Morrison had
already done his share of trash-talking to Arizona’s Salim
Stoudamire during the game. After his team lost, he was done
talking. “I have nothing to say about Salim
Stoudamire,” Morrison said. “I have nothing to
say.” Morrison had his worst outing of the season in his
second game back from a sprained right ankle, scoring zero points
and with three fouls in his three first-half minutes. After
Stoudamire wasn’t called for a push-off, Morrison elbowed him
well after his shot had gone up. The two exchanged words and had to
be separated. Morrison’s second foul came just eight seconds
later. “He was a fool for even trying to come at me like
that,” said Stoudamire, who scored a career-high 34 points.
“I’m not a punk, and I’m not going to back down
from anyone. He tried to take me out of my game, and it motivated
me to play even harder.” “Morrison was out of
sync,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “He let Stoudamire
get into his head by talking smack to him. As soon as you get into
a street-ball mentality, it always works against you.”
WALCOTT WINS PRAISE: Junior point guard Ryan
Walcott, in playing a season-high 22 minutes, turned the ball over
just once and even found his way onto the court with starter Cedric
Bozeman at times. “He did a good job settling us down in both
halves,” Howland said. “Against teams that pressure,
maybe I have to look to play him more.”
DRIBBLERS: Forward Trevor Ariza’s eight
assists doubled his previous career high. Two more would have given
him a triple-double. “¦ The Bruins fell to 0-8 when they were
outrebounded. The Wildcats had a 29-26 rebounding edge.