Coming into the season, the Notre Dame game was huge.
A battle of two top-10 teams.
Two storied schools in UCLA and Notre Dame playing in one of the most historic arenas: Pauley Pavilion.
On national television, no less.
Now, as the calendar has turned to February and the season has run its course, the matchup between the No. 15 Bruins (17-4, 7-2 Pac-10) and the Fighting Irish (12-8, 3-6 Big East) this Saturday at 10 a.m. seems to have lost a bit of the preseason luster.
UCLA entered the season as the No. 4 team in the country, with Notre Dame at No. 9. Yet since the start of the season until now, each team has experienced its share of adversity.
The Bruins lost early games to Michigan and Texas, as well as a two-of-three skid two weeks ago.
The Fighting Irish find themselves in a more precarious position having lost five consecutive games.
Despite the struggles that each team has experienced this season, Bruin players were adamant that this game has not lost any significance.
“When Notre Dame comes, it’s still a great matchup,” junior forward James Keefe said. “Anyone can have a slump, but they’re still a great team.”
Leading the Fighting Irish is talented junior forward Luke Harangody. Harangody, the fifth-leading scorer in the country, is averaging 25.1 points and 13.2 rebounds per game. Listed at 6 feet, 8 inches and 255 pounds, Harangody will provide a challenge for Alfred Aboya and Drew Gordon down low.
Notre Dame also has a deep threat in senior guard Kyle McAlarney. The sharpshooter is averaging 15.9 points per game, while boasting an impressive 45.8 shooting percentage from beyond the three-point line, the fourth best in the nation.
“We know this is an important game,” senior forward Josh Shipp said. “We need these next two wins, and we’re going to come out and do whatever it takes to get these two wins. They might be struggling now, but we definitely don’t want them to get jump-started against us.”
One knock on the Bruins so far this season has been the absence of a resume-building win. With a Ratings Percentage Index rating of 31, the Bruins’ best win in terms of RPI was last week’s 81-66 win over California, who is currently 41 in the RPI. While the Fighting Irish rank No. 76 in the RPI, senior point guard Darren Collison said a win over a Big East team would go a long way toward building a solid resume for the NCAA tournament.
A unique aspect of Saturday’s game will be the 10 a.m. tip-off time. The reason for the early tip time is that CBS is nationally televising the game.
“I agreed to it because I thought it would be good for us to be on national television,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “Obviously we would like it to be a little later, but they said, “˜Hey, if you go at 10 o’clock, you got everybody in the country.’ I said, “˜No problem. We’ll do it.’
“You got to be ready to play no matter what time the game is. You’ve got to be able to adjust to that. That is a little different but we’ll deal with it.”
Many UCLA players said that this will be the earliest they have played a game that mattered. Junior forward Nikola Dragovic said that he would play as early as noon while in Serbia, but never as early as 10 in the morning.
“That’ll be tough, that’ll be tough,” senior center Alfred Aboya said. “But you know, it is what it is. We have to play, so the time doesn’t really matter. We got to be ready for that.”