Bruins hope to topple Mountaineers

After taking down its crosstown rival on Wednesday, the UCLA basketball team didn’t have much time to celebrate.

UCLA (21-2, 10-2 Pac-10) headed across the country to Pittsburgh on Thursday and will travel to Morgantown, W.Va., where it will face a new-look West Virginia team (18-5, 7-4 Big East) on Saturday.

After having a team breakfast at Jerry’s Deli in Westwood early Thursday morning, the Bruins took a flight out of LAX at 11:40 a.m. to catch a connecting flight in Cincinnati. The team arrived in Pittsburgh at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and went straight to practice.

On Saturday, UCLA will look to avenge a painful loss it sustained to the Mountaineers at Pauley Pavilion last season. The Bruins fell behind by as much as 20 in that game early in the first half, but had a chance to tie the game at the end.

But when former UCLA point guard Jordan Farmar was stripped by West Virginia’s Mike Gansey, the Bruins’ fate was sealed. Since the loss to the Mountaineers, UCLA has won 18 consecutive games in Pauley Pavilion.

This season, West Virginia has a completely different look to it than it did last year. Gone are Mike Gansey, Kevin Pittsnogle, Patrick Beilein, Johannes Herber and J.D. Collins. The only regular from last year who is playing this year is senior forward Frank Young, who leads the team in scoring with 14.3 points per game.

The youth and inexperience of the Mountaineers had most of the preseason polls picking them to finish somewhere at the bottom of the Big East.

But West Virginia has surprised everyone across the nation this year. Employing balanced scoring and a tight defense, the Mountaineers have risen to the challenge and emerged as one of the top teams in the Big East. They would almost certainly be in the NCAA Tournament if the season ended today.

The Mountaineers have recorded impressive victories over Connecticut, Villanova and North Carolina State this season. They were 11-0 at home before falling to No. 6 Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

PAULEY PAVILION UPDATE: On Tuesday, the UCLA athletic department announced that it has found an architectural firm to take control of the renovation of Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA selected HOK Sport, which is based in Kansas City, Mo., to begin planning for the reconstruction of the arena, which is aimed to be completed and dedicated to former coach John Wooden for his 100th birthday on Oct. 14, 2010.

“HOK has designed some of the finest sports venues in the industry and is noted as being one of the best in the business,” UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said in a statement. “We are very pleased to have taken the next step in the renovation of Pauley Pavilion and eagerly await HOK’s pre-design plan.”

HOK Sport is one of the leading architectural firms of athletic facilities all around the globe. It has designed several new professional baseball stadiums, including Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Coors Field in Denver, Camden Yards in Baltimore, AT&T Park in San Francisco and PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

It is also responsible for the design of some prestigious new football stadiums, including M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., and Reliant Stadium in Houston.

As far as arenas go, HOK designed the Honda Center in Anaheim in 1993 as well as the Pepsi Center in Denver, which plays host to the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and has influenced the construction of many other arenas around the nation.

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