The cold shower that is the first week of winter quarter is upon us, but as you shake off the icy remnants of your annual wake-up call, come warm yourself by the rising flames of the 2011 Pac-10 men’s basketball season.
Compared to the fresh excitement of fall quarter or the unabashed sunshine of spring, our present term usually gets the bronze medal.
But if you’re a UCLA hoops fanatic, winter is the new summer. That is, it will be, as long as it ends with Tyler Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson making their first NCAA Tournament appearance.
While you were at home unlearning your studies in front of the television at a rapid pace, the Bruins were busy setting themselves up for another try at March Madness.
When we last left them, the UCLA hoopsters kicked off your finals week with a bad omen, waving a big, white flag to Montana over at Pauley Pavilion in the team’s fourth straight loss.
But since then, the Bruins have filed a six-game win streak and a respectable loss to Washington, the best team in the conference.
The highlight of the break was a resume-making victory over No. 15 Brigham Young at the Wooden Classic in Anaheim, still the Cougars’ only loss. And the biggest result was that UCLA has reclaimed its own destiny.
Now, a solid performance in the conference season could guarantee the Bruins (9-5, 1-1 Pac-10) the at-large bid to the year-end Dance that they so inelegantly failed to earn last time around.
“I still think we’re one of the best teams in the Pac-10,” Honeycutt said even after his team’s 74-63 defeat to the Huskies.
Yes, that’s true, but will being “one of the best” be enough?
With the conference’s reputation waning, the Pac-10 could send as little as two teams to the Tournament. A third-place finish would be nice, but it’s just going to be a big, fat disappointment if the team isn’t in the year’s Field of 68.
Currently, UCLA is enjoying the longest stretch of rest it will have all season. With nine days between its last game and its next one ““ a Sunday night contest at USC ““ this might be the most important time of the year for coach Ben Howland and his crew.
If we learned anything from the conference’s first week of games, it’s that a place in that top tier is more than up for grabs.
This is a conference full of talented players on very mediocre teams. UCLA has a chance to be more than that.
Arizona is led by the totally draftable Derrick Williams, but the Wildcats just got beaten by the same Oregon State team that has home losses to Utah Valley and Texas Southern.
Washington State has the league’s leading scorer in Klay Thompson (who dropped 26 points against UCLA last week), but the Cougars were still winless during their trip to Southern California last week.
UCLA could fit in with this bunch. The sophomore-forward duo of Honeycutt and Nelson is as talented as any such pair in the country, but the consistency of their on-court leadership is still lacking. There are times when freshman Joshua Smith looks like the highly-touted center he is supposed to be, but it doesn’t take long for him to look his age.
If the Bruins want to shed those cliches of inexperience, then they have to act now. Monday started a string of six straight days of practice to prepare for the rest of the teams in the Pac-10. As one of the most credentialed coaches in the conference, Howland knows the onus is on him to get his young stars to win games while they are still developing, and this might be his last shot to hammer home those final words of wisdom before setting his team loose for their second-half run.
The Pac-10 is far removed from the glory days of just three years ago when there were seven NBA first-round draft picks roaming league play.
The conference’s only ranked team, No. 23 Washington, only just returned to the rankings this week even though it is probably true that the veteran Huskies, like Howland said last week, “can play with anybody.” That national respect is just not there anymore, either.
If the Bruins want to make this a winter to remember, they have to separate themselves from that pack. They cannot drop a game here and there to any of the mess of teams floundering in the soggy dregs of the Pac-10.
So for basketball fans looking to keep their blood warm through the cold season, stay tuned. With only a couple of the conference’s teams probably getting their tickets punched, UCLA has a chance to catch fire this time of year, but it means every game against a league rival could turn the Bruins’ hopes into a smoky pile of ashes.
E-mail Smukler at esmukler@media.ucla.edu.