The UCLA men’s basketball team finds itself in an unfamiliar position.
For the first time in three years, the Bruins are not Pac-10 regular season champions, finishing in second place ““ one game behind the Washington Huskies.
Additionally, the Bruins (24-7, 13-5 Pac-10) enter the Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament as the No. 2 seed after three years of earning the top seed.
Yet for senior forward Josh Shipp, there is less pressure this time around.
“For us, we have nothing to lose,” Shipp said. “We don’t have all that pressure of defending anymore. For us, we just got to come in and hopefully redeem ourselves for not winning the conference title.”
The Bruins’ chance at redemption begins tonight against No. 7 Washington State at 8:30 p.m. at the Staples Center in the quarterfinals. The Cougars defeated the No. 10 Oregon Ducks 62-40 Wednesday night in the opening round.
The Bruins expected to play Washington State (17-14, 8-10), with UCLA coach Ben Howland telling the media Tuesday that his team was preparing to play the Cougars.
A game against the Cougars offers the Bruins a chance to avenge a discouraging 82-81 loss at home three weeks ago. In that game, Washington State shot 68 percent from the field in the first half ““ 58.8 percent for the entire game ““ on the way to a season-high 82 points. Cougar senior guard Taylor Rochestie torched the Bruin defense with a career-best 33 points, while freshman Klay Thompson added 15 points.
On Tuesday, Howland was asked if losing to the Cougars benefited the Bruins in any way, to which he replied, “It doesn’t benefit us at all.”
Howland continued to say that the Bruins have improved their play since that loss.
Entering tonight’s game, the Bruins are riding a four-game winning streak after road wins at Stanford and California, and a sweep of the Oregon schools at home.
Evident in the Feb. 21 home loss to the Cougars was a Bruin defense that has been inconsistent throughout the regular season. Entering tonight’s game, the Bruins rank seventh in the Pac-10 ““ 250th in the nation ““ in field goal percentage defense (44.9). This has led to a sense of disappointment for UCLA senior center Alfred Aboya.
“I’m still not satisfied,” Aboya said. “I think at times our defense, it’s streaky, and we need it to be consistent.”
One intriguing matchup in tonight’s game will be between UCLA freshman guard Jrue Holiday and Thompson. In the loss to the Cougars at Pauley Pavilion, Holiday struggled guarding Thompson. He was eventually pulled in favor of fellow freshman guard Malcolm Lee.
For Holiday, the opportunity to get one more chance at defending Thompson is something he is looking forward to.
“I’ve guarded him before in high school,” Holiday said. “I guarded him the first time we played them at Washington State, and I did pretty well against him. You know, he got the best of me the second time we played him.”
The Bruins’ inability to win a fourth consecutive Pac-10 regular season title has fueled discussion about the conference tournament having a greater importance for the Bruins. Yet Howland maintained it’s always been critical.
“It’s always important,” Howland said. “I don’t see it being any more or any less than the last three years, four years. The committee’s always looking at the tournament. There’s a few teams that ““ if they lost in the first round ““ would not get hurt terribly by it, but most teams, there’s definitely some importance attached to each one of the games that you play.”
Holiday echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“We’re coming after everybody like they’re trying to come after us, like they want to take something away from us.”