The UCLA basketball team’s last "easy" game of the season turned
out not to be so easy. Sam Houston State frustrated the No. 1
Bruins with their slow style of play in the first half and for
parts of the second half. But in the end, the No. 1 Bruins (10-0)
emerged victorious over the Bearkats (6-5), 75-61. "They came in
here very patient, holding till the last 10 seconds of the shot
clock,” coach Ben Howland said. "I’m just glad we got the
win. Now we’ve got 20 straight games in a row that are going to be
all very difficult." Reports of this season’s Bruin basketball
games are starting to sound like a broken record – start off slow
in the first half, wear down teams as the game goes on, and pick up
a victory with a score that indicates domination. Tuesday’s game
was no exception. The Bruins fell behind the Bearkats early 9-2,
and it took them almost 12 minutes to claim their first lead of the
game. It was a lead the Bruins didn’t relinquish but had a hard
time expanding. "We’ve got to take it upon ourselves to come
out with better intensity in the first half and the beginning of
the second half," said sophomore point guard Darren Collison, who
finished the game with 11 points and nine assists. "We’re playing
good teams coming up, so we have to pick up the intensity." In what
was a very evenly played first half, the difference in the score
was free-throw shooting. The Bruins, who came into the game
shooting a Pac-10 Conference-worst 59.8 percent from the line, hit
12-13 free throws in the first half. Redshirt sophomore forward
Josh Shipp had 12 first-half points and hit all six of his
free-throw attempts in the first half. For the game, UCLA finished
17-21 from the charity stripe while Sam Houston State was just
7-18. "If we didn’t make our foul shots in the first half, we
would have been down or tied at halftime," Howland said. "Our
foul-shooting was good tonight. That was a real positive." The
Bearkats displayed a style of play throughout the game that the
Bruins will likely see a lot of in Pac-10 play. The Bearkats tried
to limit the Bruins’ fast-break opportunities by running their
offense without taking a shot until the final seconds on the shot
clock ticked. "I think it’s a good experience," Shipp said. "We’re
going to have to play teams that slow it down. It’s going to help
us in the long run." As the Bruins get ready to face an 11-1
Michigan team Saturday, they will have owned the nation’s No. 1
ranking for four weeks. UCLA knows it will have to improve its
consistency if it hopes to maintain that ranking in the weeks to
come. "At times (we’re playing like the No. 1 team), at times not,"
Collison said. “It’s part of the game. Everything’s not going
to work out the way we want it to work. We’ll be ready for Michigan
like we were for Texas A&M. This Michigan game is going to be a
whole new game for us."
GAME NOTES: Freshman guard/forward Nikola
Dragovic served the last game of his 10-game suspension Tuesday. He
will be eligible to return for the Michigan game Saturday. “¦
Freshman forward James Keefe had a season-high five points in 10
minutes. “¦ The bottom rows of the UCLA student section did
not come close to filling up against Sam Houston State. There
appeared to be a much-lower student turnout Tuesday than at any of
last season’s winter break games when students had actual tickets
instead of using their BruinCards to be admitted to the game.