Kevin Love has periodically been unhappy this year with his touches.
The freshman center considers himself one of the best passers in college basketball and feels that he should be touching the ball on most UCLA offensive possessions.
After taking just eight shots in the loss to Washington on Sunday, Love expressed a little frustration with the amount of times he touched the ball and his teammates’ inability to get him the ball when he perceived that he was open.
On Tuesday, Love was a little more restrained.
“As far as the touches go, I just want to help my team win as much as possible,” Love said.
“I feel like I’m a good enough passer to find open guys ““ find Josh (Shipp) open on the wing, find Russell (Westbrook) on a cut.”
Love also said that, though he may have thought he was open, the tape may show otherwise, as it often does.
“They did have a guy behind me (sometimes), some double- and triple-teams,” Love said.
“I was just really frustrated after the game. If we had won, it probably would have been something different.”
Also contributing to the Huskies’ ability to double the post effectively was the inability of the Bruins to hit 3-point shots.
UCLA went 1-16 from 3-point range in the game, and the Huskies subsequently could sag off a little bit from the perimeter, thus clumping more and more defenders around Love.
“I wouldn’t authorize teams to (sag down) against us, because we can get severely hot,” Love said.
“It’s tough to say on a cold night like that. I think I need to bump out to the high post a little bit more, shoot some 3s, take it to the basket.”
LUC’S PROGRESS: Power forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who has been out since the game against Arizona with an ankle injury, has begun shooting around, though he has not started with cutting drills, according to coach Ben Howland.
“He did some shooting yesterday but not any cutting,” Howland said. “It was just stationary. Obviously he’s got to try to do some more conditioning.”
Mbah a Moute also suffered a concussion against USC earlier in the year, which held him out until the game against Arizona State.
Howland was impressed that his conditioning did not drop off too much after that first injury, but he does not know what kind of drop-off there will be after the most recent one.
“It’s significant when you’re out for 10 or 12 days without running,” Howland said.
“I was surprised how well he did last time when he missed both Oregon games and came back and played well in both the Arizona State and Arizona games.”
NO PROTEST: Howland will not file a complaint with the Pac-10 over the Tim Morris-Alfred Aboya incident at the end of the Washington game.
Morris, inbounding the ball from the sideline for the Huskies, threw the ball off Aboya’s face to avoid a five-second call.
Aboya was not injured on the play, but the throw to the face could have warranted a technical foul call on Morris.
“No, (I didn’t talk to anyone about the play),” Howland said.
Howland went on to comment that he liked physical games that are clean, implying that Sunday’s game was not a clean game, however physical it was.
“It’s a different kind of physical. I’m all for physical play and play that is clean physical play. I think that’s the way the game is meant to be played. It was a physical game on Sunday.”
NOTES: Howland said he didn’t know whether Michael Roll would be back this year. Roll is suffering from a ruptured plantar fascia.
The Bruins next play on Sunday. It will be their second-consecutive Sunday game.
This year, the Bruins are 0-2 on Sunday.