All week long, the UCLA basketball team had plenty of questions
surrounding it. Could the Bruins get up for an 11-1 Michigan team
after struggling against a couple of lightly regarded teams? How
would the Bruins respond in front of a packed crowd and a national
television audience? Is this UCLA team really the No. 1 team in the
country? The Bruins answered all the questions with one word:
annihilation. No. 1 UCLA (11-0) slaughtered Michigan (11-2) 92-55
on Saturday morning in front of a rambunctious Pauley Pavilion
crowd of 11,876. "We just played our best game of the year," coach
Ben Howland said. "Our guys were fired up for this game." The
question of whether the Bruins are the No. 1 team in the nation had
come up quite a bit during the week. ESPN’s Jay Bilas ranked the
Bruins No. 4 behind Ohio State, North Carolina and Florida in his
column on Thursday. Oakland coach Greg Kampe, whose team lost to
the Bruins last Saturday, went on record saying the Bruins were not
the best opponent his team has faced this year, and that he thought
Michigan could beat UCLA. But on Saturday, even if Michigan shut
out UCLA in the first half, they still would not have won the game;
the Bruins’ 56 second-half points were more than Michigan scored in
the entire game. "They put a couple of articles in our locker room
that gave us some motivation," redshirt sophomore forward Josh
Shipp said about the team’s attitude coming into the game.
"(Michigan) wanted to come out and prove something against us, and
we just wanted to go out and play hard and get the win." Sophomore
forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute started the game off with two
quick steals, and junior guard Arron Afflalo hit two 3-pointers as
the Bruins opened up a quick 8-0 lead. That was a lead that just
kept getting bigger as the game wore on. Mbah a Moute ended up
finishing the game with seven steals, an astounding number for a
power forward, and the Bruins had six players score at least eight
points. Shipp and Afflalo led the team with 18 and 17 points
respectively, while sophomore point guard Darren Collison had 15
points and eight assists. The 37-point margin of victory was a mark
of how far the program has come its four years under Howland. In
Howland’s first year as coach in 2003-2004, the Bruins lost to
Michigan, and UCLA had two very close victories against the
Wolverines in the past two seasons. But there was nothing close
about this year’s game against Michigan. While the Bruins have been
prone to slow starts all year, UCLA dominated Michigan from start
to finish Saturday. And as good as the Bruins were in the first
half, they were much better in the second half. "One thing about
this team is that we’re a 40-minute team," Afflalo said. "In the
second half, we tend to open up the game a lot throughout the
course of this season. Part of that is because in the first half,
teams are well prepared for us – they’ve got us scouted. But to
beat us, you have to do it for 40 minutes." As the Bruins beat up
on Michigan for 40 minutes on Saturday, the national television
audience watching could see firsthand why the Bruins have their No.
1 ranking. But as the Bruins open up Pac-10 play Thursday, there is
still a lot more to prove. "I never feel like we’re the No. 1
team," Collison said. "We’ve got to continue to get better. The
No.1 (ranking) to us doesn’t mean anything. We’ve got to go out
there and win games to prove it."
THE BEST CONFERENCE?: Ben Howland didn’t beat
around the bush after Saturday’s game when evaluating the state of
the Pac-10 conference this season. "I’m watching more and more
college basketball and I think (the Pac-10) is the best conference
in the country," Howland said. "If you look top to bottom, our
teams are the best. If you watched Washington play LSU, that was
such a dominating performance. Arizona’s playing so well, Oregon’s
undefeated. … Washington State’s 11-1. Our work’s
cut out for us." The Bruins open up Pac-10 play at home against
Washington State on Thursday and take on No. 17 Washington on Dec.
31.