Madness hits Bruins as NCAA tourney nears
By Melissa Anderson
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
There are still two games remaining in the regular season for
the UCLA men’s basketball team, but already attention has shifted
focus to the NCAA tournament.
By virtue of the tie-breaking system utilized by the Pacific 10,
the Bruins have secured the conference’s automatic berth in the
tournament, though Arizona can still tie UCLA for the Pac-10
title.
Unlike last season when UCLA was almost sure it would receive
the top seed in the West Region as the No. 1 team in the nation,
the No. 16 Bruins will be glued to their seats Sunday afternoon
when the tournament seedings are announced.
This year, UCLA is hoping to remain in the West, but doesn’t
expect to receive anything higher than a three-seed. In order to
earn anything higher than a four, however, the Bruins will have to
remain focused on picking up two more victories this weekend
against the Washington schools.
"I don’t foresee a two-seed, possibly a three with the two wins,
possibly," UCLA head coach Jim Harrick said at his weekly press
conference, adding that he would be "very, very, very upset" if his
team was sent anywhere outside of the West.
Though the Bruins would not have home court advantage by
remaining in the West, travelling to Tempe or Albuquerque rather
than a first-round site on the other coast would have obvious
benefits for the Pac-10 champs.
"Travel time, familiarity, more people at your games. If we go
to Tempe, somehow we’ll be the dominant team there, I believe
that," Harrick said. "We’ll have a very nice crowd there."
* * *
With junior Cameron Dollar back in the starting lineup, UCLA may
not have cut back on its turnovers, but they now have more options
in the rotation.
In order to get Kris Johnson substantial minutes off the bench
last Saturday against Oregon, Harrick moved J.R. Henderson to the
point in place of Dollar rather than sophomore Toby Bailey. Bailey
spent the majority of the season starting at the point in place of
Dollar, but never felt completely comfortable there.
"I would probably lean toward playing J.R. there as we head into
the tournament, but there are times when J.R. is having a great
game and then I’d use Bailey there," Harrick said. "It depends on
the situation and that makes our team so versatile that you become
hard to guard in situations like that."
* * *
UCLA’s 14-2 conference mark is identical to the record last
year’s national championship squad had at this point in the season.
Their 52.5 percent field goal percentage is still tops in the
nation and would be the second-highest mark in school history
should they finish the season with that clip. The 1979 Bruins shot
55.5 percent.
"We’ve got the same record we had a year ago at this time and
that really does amaze me," Harrick said. "To think that this team
would to what last year’s team did, I don’t think anyone in the
room would have thought that either.
"We’ve seen this team play awfully good and we’ve seen it play
awfully bad. But the bad has outweighed the good. This is a
strange, strange time of the year. That’s why they call it March
Madness."
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
J.R. Henderson
Comments to webmaster@db.asucla.ucla.edu