Throughout UCLA men’s basketball’s train wreck of a season, perhaps no player has better represented the Bruins’ recent derailing better than sophomore guard Bryce Alford.
In the team’s 4-0 honeymoon phase start to the year, Alford played some of the best games of his young career, logging his first two career double-doubles. As things have nosedived lately, the Bruins mired in a five-game skid, Alford’s individual woes have mirrored UCLA’s.
Over the past three games at Alabama, Colorado and Utah, Alford has made just five of his 39 shot attempts, including an 0-10 stat line in his most recent game. No matter where he shoots from, shots just haven’t fallen for Alford, who admitted he’s never experienced a slump this extreme.
“No, not quite,” Alford said. “I’ve never in my life had something like that happen to me. It’s been tough … to get through.”
While all scorers go through cold streaks, Alford has taken criticism more for his questionable shot selection than his misses. Of the 39 shots, 22 were three-point shots and many were contested, as Alford settled for tough shots instead of finding a better look.
Alford cited one reason for his contested shots was that he has been facing tougher defense than he’s ever faced. As the focal point of UCLA’s offense, he’s often matched against the opponent’s top defenders who are longer and more athletic than Alford is accustomed to. The result has been Alford’s shooting percentage dropping below 40 percent as he’s struggled to adapt.
The issue with shot selection doesn’t solely apply to Alford however. Coach Steve Alford has noticed his entire team forcing some shots lately as the Bruins try to get things back on track.
“We’ve got in a little bit of habit of, I don’t know if settling is the word, but through the pressure and through how people are guarding us, we’re taking some tougher (shots),” Steve Alford said.
Several players downplayed the idea of a snowball effect occurring as wins and missed shots pile up, but Alford said that he learned during his time as a player that slumps and big losses can affect players’ psyches.
Senior guard Norman Powell offered a different diagnosis on the reason for the frequent contested and missed shots: poor ball movement.
“I feel like we haven’t been working the ball around a lot,” Powell said.
The stats seem to back that up. In UCLA’s eight wins, its assist-to-turnover ratio has been at one or higher, a stat that the Bruins excelled at last season. In each of the seven losses this year, the Bruins have had more turnovers than assists, usually by a significant margin.
With less ball movement, UCLA is generating fewer assists and the result has been poor shot selection and a whole lot of missed shots.
The Bruins have figured out plenty of potential causes for their shooting struggles, but finding a way to fix them remains a problem.
Generally, some coaches tweak their lineup to find different combinations that are more successful, but given the extreme lack of depth this year, Alford doesn’t really have that choice.
“It’s hard, I dont know what those changes would be,” Alford said. “We have a very young bench.”
Alford pointed out that freshman forward Gyorgy Goloman was considered a redshirt candidate before the loss of several players due to ineligibility forced him to play a significant role this season. Similarly, Alford said sophomore guard Noah Allen is not yet a scoring threat and freshman center Thomas Welsh still has some developing to do before either can earn a starting spot.
So for now, UCLA is stuck with who it has, and will be forced to change the way it plays rather than who plays.
“This is what we got. This is the hand that we were dealt and we’re gonna ride it out until the end of the season,” Bryce Alford said. “We’re not gonna go down (without a fight).”