Bruins to face weakened Cougar rivals

When UCLA heads up to Pullman tonight to take on Washington State, it will not exactly be the seeming clash of titans that the first game between the two this year was.

At that time, it was a game between two top-five teams: the Bruins, with one loss, demolished the undefeated Cougars before a flurry of Washington State 3-pointers at the end of the game made the final score, 81-74, appear far closer than the competition was.

Now, it’s not quite such a marquee matchup.

Although the No. 5 UCLA men’s basketball team (20-2, 8-1 Pac-10) remains at the top of the Pac-10 with just one loss in conference play and remains in the national discussion as one of the teams favored to make it to the Final Four in San Antonio, the Cougars have fallen off the radar.

Losing three of its last four games, Washington State (17-4, 5-4) was just swept at home by California and Stanford, losing an overtime heartbreaker to the Cardinal on Saturday. Though still ranked at No. 17, the Cougars, with four losses in conference, have relinquished their place as the main contender for UCLA.

Partly because of the Cougars’ recent losses, especially at home, coach Ben Howland expects a tough game Thursday night.

“There’s no question that they’ll have their best game of the year prepared for us on Thursday,” Howland said. “Especially a team as good as theirs is, considering they’ve lost those two games at home.

“We’re going to be really good to have success on their home floor.”

Maybe, or maybe not. The Cougars have all the appearance of a team that is reeling. Their only victory over the last four games was a one-point win over the Sun Devils of Arizona State, who seem to be returning back to earth after starting Pac-10 play with four victories. They lost to both Bay Area teams, as well as Arizona. UCLA beat all four of those teams pretty handily.

But Howland prefers to look at it as the Pac-10 being really good, rather than Washington State regressing to the mean.

“Our league is so good,” Howland said. “Look at us, our field goal percentage defense in the Pac-10 is something like 45 percent. We’ve still been able to eke out some wins here. It’s hard.

“They’re a very good defensive team, one of the best in the country.”

UCLA has managed to eke out eight wins to Washington State’s five, how ever, so pure math would indicate the Bruins are the superior team.

But as the Bruins learned against USC a few weeks ago, sometimes it doesn’t pay to be the better team on paper. In that game, the Bruins were outmatched by the USC athletes after power forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute went down with a concussion, and also appeared to be stymied by Tim Floyd’s triangle and two defense.

The Bruins are again without Mbah a Moute, who is out with an ankle sprain, but Washington State plays a mean defense and has nowhere near the athletes USC has.

However, the lesson learned from the game against the Trojans remains an important one for the Bruins heading into any conference game.

Though they may look better to both pundits and pollsters, the Bruins still have to prove it on the floor. And you will never hear Howland say his team is better than the other.

“(The Cougars) play good possession,” Howland said. “They’re long. They have good size. They have good depth, so there’s a lot of things they do well. They don’t turn the ball over.”

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