Damn. That was impressive.
There’s just no better way to describe it.
What UCLA did Sunday, going to Notre Dame and getting arguably
its most important win of the season, was the kind of game that
tournament dreams are made of.
It was the kind of win that makes a regular season, the kind of
win that proves the worth of your basketball team, the kind of win
that can’t help but impress the NCAA tournament
committee.
And perhaps most incredibly, it was the kind of win that nobody
expected.
I didn’t give the Bruins a chance to win that game.
It was a road trip that no one really wanted to make, against a
talented team with NCAA tournament aspirations of its own. Dijon
Thompson said beforehand that he would rather stay home than make
the journey to South Bend, Ind. Coach Ben Howland expressed a
similar sentiment. Add to that the fact that UCLA had played its
best game of the season Thursday against awful USC, a letdown
against the Fighting Irish all but seemed inevitable.
All the pieces were there for a blowout, leaving UCLA’s
tournament standing even more up in the air.
But it didn’t happen, and I’ll bet the Bruins are
awfully happy they made the trip.
They showed everyone something special on Sunday, taking control
of the game early and maintaining the lead late. They really took
the crowd out of the game, forcing that leprechaun to get his
jollies by dancing with old women. The real jollies of this game,
meanwhile, were had by the Bruins and their fans.
Jordan Farmar is a better player than Chris Thomas. Right
now.
Arron Afflalo has been the Bruins’ best player the last
two games.
Brian Morrison is, without a doubt, the key to this team’s
success.
Even with Thompson playing a game far below his high standards,
shooting 4-for-15 from the field, UCLA won a game it wasn’t
supposed to win.
And when that happens, you can’t help but feel good about
things. At the beginning of the game, CBS showed a stat that said
UCLA was 1-7 against teams in the top 50, with its only win coming
at home against Washington.
That’s not an impressive statistic, and so it serves to
add even more luster to this victory.
Though it wasn’t a “must-win” situation for
the Bruins, it was an “it’d be really, really nice if
they could win” situation.
Logic seemed to suggest that the Fighting Irish would play very
well today. They needed a win as much, if not more, than UCLA, and
Notre Dame was playing at home. The Fighting Irish had almost a
full week to prepare for this important non-conference clash. And
it still lost to a better team.
UCLA is better than Notre Dame. That’s perhaps the most
satisfying aspect of the entire game for me. In these last two
games especially, UCLA’s defense has been tremendous, and
good defense will win you a lot of games.
I realize that the Bruins aren’t going to shoot as well as
14-for-23 from 3-point range every game. But they’re also not
going to shoot as poorly as 10-for-29 from the field. And, Thompson
is undoubtedly going to play better than he played Sunday.
In short, that wasn’t the best UCLA can play, yet the team
still produced an incredibly important victory.
Things are coming together for UCLA basketball, and it’s
really great to see.
Three days after dominating a bad USC team at home, UCLA
outplayed a pretty good Notre Dame team on the road. If this
momentum holds, UCLA will sweep the Oregon schools next week and
win at least one game in the Pac-10 tournament.
That will get them into the NCAA tournament. And considering
that this team starts three freshmen and is only in the second
season of Howland’s rebuilding process, you can only say one
thing.
Damn. That is impressive.
Regan is a basketball columnist for the 2004-2005 season.
E-mail him at dregan@media.ucla.edu.