AUSTIN, Texas — Welcome to Austin for the Daily Bruin’s coverage of UCLA basketball’s first NCAA Tournament run since… 2011.
In the video above, senior staff writer Sam Strong and Court Visions columnist Ryan Menezes break down Friday’s second-round game between No. 6 seed UCLA and No. 11 seed Minnesota. The guys touch on some important aspects of the game but here are three things worth considering going into it. Tipoff is set for 30 minutes after the 6:27 p.m. CT/4:27 p.m. PT game between No. 3 seed Florida and No. 14 seed Northwestern State.
1. The higher seeded underdog?
Coach Ben Howland runs a tight ship. He doesn’t like letting outsiders or media members into his locker room (unless it’s mandated by the NCAA like it is this weekend) or discussing what goes on in there. Lucky for us, Howland and his players spoke separately at Thursday’s press conference. Redshirt senior guard Larry Drew II admitted that Howland incorporated the media in his own special way: by posting newspaper clippings and quotes from those who doubt his team’s chances on Friday.
“(Howland) definitely wants that to motivate us,” Drew said. “So we got word that people are kind of counting us out, but we feel like we have been proving people wrong all year. From the start of the year, kind of coming off or coming out the gates a little bit slow, to winning the conference, again, at the end of the day there’s one ball, there’s two hoops and 10 players out there on the court and they’re the same game, we’re just going to go out there and play it.”
Most Las Vegas sports books have Minnesota favored by two or three points. We’ll find out Friday if Howland’s motivational tactics worked.
2. Clean the glass
Sound familiar? It should. UCLA was destroyed in the rebounding battle for much of the season and has only outrebounded its opponent three times since conference play began in January. The Bruins are ranked 251st in the country in rebounding margin (-1.9). The bad news for UCLA fans is for Minnesota’s faults – a team that won just five of its last 16 games – the Golden Gophers know how to rebound. They sit at No. 8 in the national rebound margin rankings (+8.2) and rely on senior forward Trevor Mbakwe, who pulls down 8.7 per game.
“We definitely know what we’re up against,” redshirt junior forward Travis Wear said Thursday. “We have made that a main point in practice, rebounding. The team overall is extremely good at rebounding. They don’t shoot the ball particularly well, which means it’s going to be a lot of misses. We need to box them out. We need to go get the ball and not leak out early in transition.”
3. The Adams family
After freshman guard Jordan Adams broke his right foot in the semifinal of the Pac-12 Tournament last week, several Bruins dedicated the rest of their postseason run to their fallen “family member.” Adams – who recently had surgery on the injured foot – didn’t make the trip to Austin and whether his teammates are motivated by playing in his honor or not, they’ll have to make up for his lack of production.
“It was very emotional, just to see a player of Jordan’s caliber go down the way he did. … I think it just, it all just hit me pretty hard,” Drew said. “But honestly, after I got it out… I knew I had to move on. We couldn’t really be stuck on that forever, because we were going to be playing again. So I shook it off and I got focused and probably just after that point in time I knew that, okay, the season is not over, so it didn’t really linger too long.”
Adams was the team’s second leading scorer (15.3 points per game) and most accurate free throw shooter (84.3 percent). Sophomore Norman Powell started in place of Adams in the Pac-12 Championship game and scored 10 points.
“Norman has had a couple great days in practices these last couple of days, he’s really stepped up,” Drew said. “The team overall has been stepping up in Jordan’s absence. Obviously it’s a major loss to us, but Coach Howland and the rest of the coaching staff, have done a very good job in preparing us for the coming games.”
Compiled by Sam Strong, Bruin sports senior staff.
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