On the bus from the team hotel to Haas Pavilion last Saturday, senior point guard Darren Collison addressed his teammates.
Hours earlier, the Washington Huskies defeated the Arizona Wildcats 83-78 in Seattle, denying the UCLA men’s basketball team a fourth consecutive outright Pac-10 regular season title.
Yet Collison, a player who only knows Pac-10 championships, was upbeat and making sure his teammates understood that conference titles do not translate into national titles.
“When we did win the Pac-10 conference and we lost in the Final Four, that’s all we thought about,” Collison said. “We didn’t think about we won the Pac-10 conference; we thought about losing the Final Four.”
Heading into the final weekend of the Pac-10 regular season, the No. 20 Bruins (22-7, 11-5 Pac-10) are in second place in the conference, one and a half games behind first place No. 16 Washington.
The Bruins have two games remaining ““ home games against the Oregon schools ““ while Washington closes out its regular season with a home game against rival Washington State on Saturday.
While the Bruins can’t win a fourth consecutive Pac-10 title, there is still the possibility of gaining a share of first place. If the Bruins win both games this weekend, and the Huskies fall at home to a hot Cougar team, the Huskies and the Bruins would each earn a share of the title.
Senior forward Josh Shipp knew it would take a lot for the Bruins to claim sole possession of first place heading into last weekend’s trip to the Bay Area, what with Washington having all home games and the Bruins playing a game of catch up. Despite the inability to overtake the Huskies for control of the Pac-10, Shipp was pleased with the weekend’s outcome ““ two UCLA wins.
“It would be huge but we had a few mishaps,” Shipp said. “We knew it would take something big for us to get a share of the title. For us right now it’s just getting momentum going into the tournament and trying to get as a high a seed as we can.”
As a result of the two wins ““ a 76-71 victory at Stanford on Thursday and a 72-68 win at Cal Saturday ““ UCLA jumped up in the latest Ratings Percentage Index number from 36 to 26. Washington experienced a similar increase, from 19 to 12.
Following the win against Cal, deep within Haas Pavilion, Collison addressed the media. He emphasized that while it would have been nice to end his four-year career at UCLA with four Pac-10 regular season titles, there is another title he has yet to win that would mean a lot more.
“At the same time we understand what’s number one and we want to win this whole thing outright,” Collison said. “Nobody remembers winning the conference, let’s be real. Everybody remembers winning the national championship. It is disappointing that we didn’t get it but we got bigger goals and we want to accomplish that.”
PAC-10 TOURNAMENT UPDATE: With the Pac-10 regular season heading into its final weekend, there has been an increase in attention to the Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament which will be held March 11-14 at Staples Center.
If the season were to end today, the Bruins would be the No. 2 seed and would play the winner of USC and Oregon on Thursday at 8:30 p.m.
SHIPP HEARS FAMILIAR CHANT: It is almost an expected occurrence now for Josh Shipp when he travels to Cal.
Throughout the game, Shipp was serenaded by the Haas Pavilion crowd with chants of “Joe is better,” in reference to Shipp’s older brother, who played for the Golden Bears from 1999-2003.
After the game, Josh Shipp was asked if he thought Joe was actually better.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “If you ask him, he’d probably say he was better. That’s what athletes do.”