At his weekly press conference on Tuesday, UCLA men’s basketball coach Ben Howland wanted to talk about defense.
Namely, the defense of No. 8 Texas (5-1) and the immense challenge it could present to No. 12 UCLA (4-1) as they face the Longhorns today in the Pac-10/Big 12 Hardwood Series.
“Their defense is way different than it has been in the past and I think it’s made them really difficult now to try to score on,” Howland said, “because they’re so athletic, they’re so long.”
Last season, the Bruins ““ then ranked No. 2 in the country ““ were defeated by the Longhorns at Pauley Pavilion by a final score of 63-61. It was a game in which UCLA was flummoxed by Texas’ zone defense, falling behind by as many as 12 at halftime before making it close in the second half.
Yet in looking at tape from that game compared to what the Longhorns have accomplished this season, Howland emphasized their defense as the biggest change.
Instead of playing zone, Howland said Texas has played virtually no zone this season, instead using the athletic ability of their personnel to play a man-to-man, pressure style defense, not unlike the Bruins.
“They’re doing a lot of things that we’ve done in terms of doubling ball screens, doubling the post with real good quickness,” Howland said. “They’re hard to deal with.”
Redshirt junior guard/forward Michael Roll has also noted the change in the Longhorns and said that the Bruins need to be ready for an intense matchup of highly ranked teams.
“They like to pressure defense a lot,” Roll said. “They got skill players all over the court, one through five. They do a little bit similar things that we do on the defense, so in that sense it’s good.”
One of the keys to the Bruins’ having success will be how the five freshmen respond and play in a hostile environment. While the Bruins played two games on the road in Madison Square Garden in the 2K Sports Classic, the freshmen have yet to experience a true road game.
And with a rabid Austin fan-base expected to be on hand, it will be their first taste of playing in conditions similar to that of the tournament.
“New York were big games, but it wasn’t all that crowded and loud like it’s going to be at Texas,” Roll said. “They’re obviously a great tournament team, they have potential to go far. It’s going to be a war from 20 minutes on the clock at the beginning.”
While all five freshmen have played in highly contested high school games in loud gyms, Howland said tonight’s game will be unlike anything they have experienced thus far.
“This is against a top five or six team in my opinion, on the road on their home floor where they’re going to want to come out and really try to hand it to us,” Howland said. “That’s part of having had success the last few years and being UCLA. Everybody wants to beat us.”
One Texas player who is sure to be on the Bruins’ mind is senior guard A.J. Abrams, who is leading the team with an average of 15.8 points per game.
According to senior point guard Darren Collison, there really is no way you can completely stop Abrams.
“You can only contain him,” Collison said. “He’s going to put his shots up whenever he wants but we’re just going to make sure we have a hand in his face and try to lower his percentages.”
Forcing the Longhorns to shoot a low percentage will be a focal point of a Bruin defense that has uncharacteristically allowed opponents to shoot at a high percentage. Through five games, the Bruins are eighth in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot 43.2 percent.
Howland said that it would be ideal to limit opponents to 40 percent shooting or less.
However, Collison is not worried.
“We have a lot of new guys on the team,” Collison said. “As soon as we start gelling together on the defensive end, we should be alright. It’s too early in the season to even panic about that situation.
“But coach Howland is right, we’d like to get that percentage down. That’s been our forte ever since I’ve been here as our defense. When we hold teams under 40 percent, we most likely win the games and we’ve been having a great year here at UCLA every time we did that.”
After suffering a tough loss to an unranked Michigan team in the semifinals of the 2K Sports Classic, the sparkle surrounding the Bruins has seemed to fade a bit.
But against a highly ranked team on the road in primetime, this game would present a great opportunity to restore some of that early promise.
“This is the first test for us,” Collison said. “Michigan game, we said it was too early. Well, this is no excuse right now because we had our practice. Texas is a very good team, they played well in Maui and we’re looking forward to a challenge.”