As the Bruins wind into the home stretch of their season, Ben Howland’s team is looking more and more like a Ben Howland team.
Defense is king once again, and the Bruins are winning because of it.
“We know that defense will win us games, and defense leads to offense,” junior guard Lazeric Jones said. “So that’s our foundation. We feel like if we stop teams, everything will open up for us.”
Heading into tonight’s matchup against Stanford, the UCLA men’s basketball team has won 10 out of their last 11 and held its last four opponents to under 40 percent shooting from the field.
In that four-game stretch, no UCLA opponent has scored more than 61 points.
On Saturday, sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt threw a block party in Pauley Pavilion, with eight of the Bruins’ 16 denials, helping UCLA (18-7, 9-3 Pac-10) make a public statement to the conference about the type of team it has become.
“This is probably the best defense we’ve played all year,” redshirt freshman center Anthony Stover said. “(Honeycutt is) taking part of my job. He’s taking a lot of the shots I want to block.”
Defensive intensity is becoming contagious on this squad, Jones said. And no one has done more to lead by example than junior guard Malcolm Lee.
Lee managed to pace the Bruins with 19 points Saturday, while taking on his normal defensive assignment: stopping the opponent’s best wing player.
Lee said it’s no secret that he’s responsible for shutting down the other team’s star. And all his teammates see the effort he’s expending on the defensive end.
“I’m looking over my shoulder seeing what Malcolm’s doing,” Jones said. “I’m trying to make sure whoever I’m guarding is slowed down. I’m trying to be like Malcolm.”
None of that bodes well for Stanford’s Jeremy Green. The junior guard is the team’s leading scorer and deadly accurate from beyond the arc ““ he made 12 straight 3-pointers over a three-game stretch against the Washington and Arizona schools ““ but he will be challenged to find open creases against Lee.
“He’s really hot,” Howland said of Green.
So too, is Green’s team, according to Howland.
Stanford (13-11, 6-7) comes into its date with UCLA having split a road series against the Washington schools, upsetting Washington State by 13.
“They had Washington State down 17 at the half,” Howland noted. “I think that indicates that they’re doing some good things.”
But the Stanford finds itself just two games over .500 with a losing record in conference play, making them yet another team UCLA “should” beat if it hopes to hear its name called on Selection Sunday.
Unlike his coach, who insists on only looking at the game just in front of him, Stover considered the entirety of the team’s upcoming weekend in the Bay.
A pair of wins, he said, would keep UCLA on Arizona’s tail, and perhaps launch the Bruins into the top-25 for the first time this season.
“We’re definitely looking at this as sweep or nothing,” Stover said of tonight’s game against Stanford and Saturday’s against Cal. “These are games we’re supposed to win.”