Bruins look to heat
it up in the desert
Arizona road trip
throws m. hoops
a true challenge
By Randy Satterburg
Daily Bruin Staff
It’s only the third weekend of conference play, but that doesn’t
prevent Arizona head basketball coach Lute Olson from describing
UCLA’s visit to McKale Center Thursday as "vital" to the way the
conference race shapes up.
Olson’s coaching counterpart at UCLA, Jim Harrick, responds by
saying that an Arizona win against the Bruins would put U of A into
the "driver’s seat" for the Pac-10 Championship.
While it remains true that conference titles are not decided
with over seven weeks left to play on the schedule, it is also true
that each and every Arizona-UCLA game does a lot to help determine
who cuts down the nets  in some way, shape or form.
Even though No. 11 Arizona (2-1) currently occupies third place
in the Pac-10 behind No. 17 Oregon (3-0) and No. 4 UCLA (3-1), the
Wildcats have a leg up on the rest of the league based on the fact
that nine of their next 15 conference games will take place in
McKale Center, where the home ‘Cats have won 107 of their last 110
games.
In addition, Arizona has already played three of the toughest
Pac-10 road games on its schedule and emerged with a 2-1 record,
bouncing back from a loss at Arizona State to sweep Stanford and
Cal in the Bay Area.
Olson looks at his team’s supposed advantage as tenuous.
"A loss to UCLA would wipe out what we accomplished in the Bay
Area," Olson said.
* * *
The road trip to Arizona is even more treacherous than usual for
UCLA this year  and also more important  because the
Bruins must now face an Arizona State squad that is also highly
ranked, at No. 13, whereas in past years the Sun Devils presented
less of a problem.
Harrick calls this week’s trip to the Arizona schools his
"toughest in 30 years of coaching."
"Needless to say, it will be an interesting weekend," Harrick
said. "We’re facing two top-10 caliber teams. There is no question
in my mind that this is (head coach) Bill Frieder’s best team (at
ASU). You can make the argument that they are as talented as
Arizona even."
Olson and Arizona appreciate the resurgence of Arizona State’s
basketball program because it means opposing teams will be unable
to prepare solely for the nightmarish experience of playing the
Wildcats in Tucson, even though it never helped road teams coming
into McKale Center before.
As for the odds of UCLA or any other team sweeping the two games
in Arizona, Olson said, "I don’t think anyone will" and repeated
himself later, "I don’t see anyone coming here and sweeping."
* * *
Sophomore Charles O’Bannon could be the wild card the Bruins
need to escape with a split or better against the Arizona schools.
He is coming off what Harrick calls a weekend in which O’Bannon
"maybe played as well as anybody for a two-game period" for UCLA
this year.
Last year, O’Bannon showed flashes of explosiveness in the open
court but got bottled up some when the Bruins slowed down to a
half-court set. He has been more consistent this season, knocking
down the open shots at a 54.1 percent clip, and is just
sixth-tenths of a percentage point behind Tyus Edney as the team’s
second-leading scorer with his average of 15.2 points per game.
"Sometimes freshmen come in thinking they can change the face of
college basketball and he’s not the only one that’s happened to,"
Harrick said, "We showed (Charles) some tape (of what we’d like him
to be doing) and he understood. Now he’s really put together some
games, and he needs to continue to play that way too."
* * *
Pay close attention to the ESPN cameras’ close-ups on Charles
O’Bannon’s face Thursday night. O’Bannon wears a bandage on his
cheek just under his eye to protect the five stitches he took in
the Bruins’ game against Washington last week, but it’s no ordinary
bandage of the opaque Band-Aid variety.
Instead, O’Bannon bought a 30-count box of Sesame Street
bandages at a local convenience store and keeps them near at hand
in his locker to have a fresh one available when needed. The
bandages come adorned with pictures of Big Bird and Barney, among
other notables.
"I started with Garfield bandages but I switched to these," he
said. "I picked them out myself."