Coming off its worst loss of the season, UCLA men’s basketball is looking for a fresh start.
That much was evident from the players at Tuesday’s practice, both from their words and their wear.
The Bruins took the court sporting their new Adidas Made in March uniforms rather than their usual blue or white practice jerseys.
Practicing in the new jerseys for the first time, the Bruins were hoping to get acclimated to playing with sleeves, as they will don the uniforms in a game for the first time Thursday as they face the Oregon Ducks in the second round of the Pac-12 Tournament in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The fresh clothes matched a fresh mindset for UCLA after its 73-55 loss to Washington State Saturday to close out the regular season.
Last week, the rhetoric among the Bruins was getting two wins on the road to head into the postseason on a hot streak. Now, they’re just trying to forget about it.
“In my 23-year career, I think every year there has been one CD that I’ll throw away, and that was the one,” said coach Steve Alford about watching the film of UCLA’s loss last Saturday.
Without the hot streak in his back pocket, Alford said he will need to find a new catalyst for his team as the Bruins begin win-or-go-home play.
“I just wish we had had a two-game sweep so that we could go back to that. As a coach, now you look at something different,” Alford said. “You know, that’s what I was hoping we could fall back to as we got into the tournament, but I don’t have that, so I’ve got to figure out what to go to next.”
But a different Alford isn’t as concerned about finding motivation. Freshman guard Bryce Alford said that playing with energy and effort, which has been a key problem for the Bruins in their road losses this season, won’t be a problem.
“I think definitely all of our guys are gonna get up for these games,” Bryce Alford said. “It’s not a hard thing to do to get up for the games in Vegas or the NCAA tournament. It’s as good as it gets in the college world, so we’re gonna be ready to play each game.”
The Bruins will need to be ready, facing an Oregon team that defeated Oregon State in the first round Wednesday. The Ducks come into the game as the hottest team in the league, with Wednesday’s win marking their eighth straight.
On top of the difficulties of facing a team playing the best it has all season, Steve Alford also pointed to the fact that the Bruins’ first opponent will already have gotten a chance to adjust to the arenas, rather than coming in cold as UCLA will after its first round bye.
“That first game in these quarterfinals always benefits the team that had the chance to play the night before because they’ve been in that environment,” Steve Alford said. “Now, as you move forward, the bye helps you. But I don’t think it’s an advantage having a bye going in the quarterfinal round because that team you are playing played the night before in that environment.”
Further complicating matters is that the Bruins didn’t learn who their opponent would be until around 8 p.m. Wednesday, giving them less than 24 hours to prepare for the matchup. Steve Alford said Tuesday that he didn’t anticipate his players looking at film to prepare until 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Working in the Bruins’ favor is the experience they have against the Ducks, splitting the season series with them. After winning the first meeting off late-game heroics by sophomore guard Jordan Adams, UCLA lost the second matchup – a double overtime thriller – with Adams and sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson watching the game from the bench while they served a one-game suspension.
But with the Bruins’ new mentality, they’re putting the past matchups behind them and focusing solely on the task at hand.
“We’re gonna get the team’s best game every game, so we’re really focusing on this postseason play right now,” said redshirt senior forward David Wear. “As far as we’re concerned, that season is done with and now we’re in postseason play and we need to focus on one game at a time.”