The Murry Bartow honeymoon phase ended with a pair of road losses last week, but the Bruins are still encouraged by the direction they are headed.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed the last two on the road have not gone our way, but guys are practicing hard, their spirit is good, the energy is good,” the interim coach said. “And we’re excited about these two games this week so hopefully we can play great here this week.”
UCLA men’s basketball (10-8, 3-2 Pac-12) dropped games at Oregon State and USC this past week after a 3-0 start to conference play. In those two games, the Bruins turned the ball over a combined 33 times and shot just 39.6 percent from the field.
Bartow said his team’s recent offensive woes boil down to its inability to take care of the basketball.
“I think there’s four or five things,” Bartow said. “If I could just tell you one, the one thing I would tell you: We have to turn it over less. That encompasses a lot of things, but we can’t turn the ball over 20 times on the road and expect to win.”
The Bruins also faced zone defenses in each of the losses, something they have struggled with due to their personnel and lack of 3-point threats on the perimeter.
Redshirt junior guard Prince Ali said that while he feels the team is equipped to face zone defenses, he admitted that poor decision-making has overshadowed its preparation in practice.
“I wouldn’t say it’s thrown us off. We just aren’t making great decisions against the zone,” Ali said. “Like I said, just make simple plays, probably move it a little bit more, and we’ll be all right.”
Despite the offense’s inefficiencies, freshman guard Jules Bernard said he thinks the turnover problems will disappear as UCLA gets more comfortable pushing the pace in Bartow’s system.
“It’s something that we just had (to) change not too many weeks ago, and we’re adapting to a new style of play,” Bernard said. “We played fast with (former coach Steve) Alford, but Bartow wants us to play even faster. We’re adjusting to it. It’s going to take some time to cut down those turnovers, but we’ve got to expedite the process, and we’re going to work hard in practice and just sort of relax.”
Bernard also stressed the importance of sorting out the issues sooner rather than later because of the implications each turnover can have on the outcome of a game.
“You don’t always get certain opportunities back in the games, and maybe one possession could change the whole game,” Bernard said. “So you’ve got to take every possession seriously, be as efficient as possible and take care of the ball.”
The Bruins will play in their first home game in nearly three weeks when they welcome the Arizona State Sun Devils (13-5, 4-2) to Pauley Pavilion on Thursday night. The Sun Devils rank fourth in the Pac-12 in opponents field goal percentage and sixth in points allowed.