Just over a month ago in its game against USC, the UCLA men’s basketball team mistook the Pauley Pavilion floor for a track.
The Bruins sprinted, drove and hustled their way to a 107-73 blowout, their highest point total of the regular season. The stat of the night on Jan. 5: 36 points in transition, enough to make any squad beg for a running clock.
And while UCLA has trended toward above-average quickness, in Sunday’s loss to Oregon State, it slowed down. Way down. Think drag race to traffic jam.
UCLA scored just 67 points, its lowest total since a Dec. 19 loss to Duke. The telltale sign of a long, unproductive afternoon in Corvallis, Ore. was the scoring of just six transition points.
“That’s a thirty-point swing,” said coach Steve Alford. “We’ve got to get out and run and play at the pace we need to play at. I thought at Corvallis we didn’t play at the pace we need to play at.”
On Saturday at USC’s Galen Center, UCLA will look to swing the transition-scoring pendulum yet again to the other side. The Bruins said getting back to that level will take confidence, start-to-finish effort and apparently a little time off.
The team was given Monday and Tuesday to rest, and at just the right time. The Bruins emerge from their most disappointing loss of the season and have actually had the time to talk about how to prevent compounding Pac-12 losses. It might be a different state of affairs than for past Alford teams at New Mexico, but the week has served a purpose.
“I think having those two days to – coaches, players, everybody – clear their mind and get away from basketball for a couple days, they seemed very energized (Wednesday) and I was very encouraged,” Alford said.
In Saturday’s matchup with (10-12, 1-8 Pac-12) USC, UCLA is especially hopeful that that encouragement can extend to its bench, particularly guard Zach LaVine. The freshman has cooled off a bit recently after a 4-for-6 field-goal shooting performance against Stanford, scoring no more than one field goal in each of his last three games. At Oregon State, LaVine made just one of his seven shots and finished with six points.
The reason why might be because LaVine has become more of a household name, a possible 2014 NBA Draft prospect who has commanded greater respect and scouting efforts from teams. Regardless of a few down games, teammates said the perception of LaVine shouldn’t change.
“Zach is a pro, whether it’s after this year or next year,” said sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson. “Eventually he’s going to be a pro. I think those are guys that you have to focus on more than any other freshman besides like Aaron Gordon or (Rondae Hollis-) Jefferson (of Arizona). Especially Zach, you’ve got to key in on him.”
In front of a Saturday crowd that the USC Ticket Office said is “almost sold out,” the key for the Bruins will be putting the past away while being motivated by the thought of not letting it happen again. A win over Oregon State would have pulled Arizona – now uncertain after a season-ending injury to Brandon Ashley – to within a game, and put the rest of the Pac-12 two or more games behind.
“That was a huge missed opportunity,” said sophomore forward/center Tony Parker about the Oregon State game. “That was a missed free throw in the fourth with a second left and a chance to win the game. That has us growing as a team and it has us in a better position for confidence.”