I did my best to come up with a clever, refreshing idea for this
column.
I pretty much failed.
First I asked my brother, a freshman at Cal, to go to the game
so I could write about it through a series of cell phone
conversations with someone actually at Haas Pavilion. He
wasn’t interested.
Then I asked my roommates to devise a drinking game we could
play while watching the Bruins. That didn’t pan out.
Finally, I decided it might be pretty cool to simply watch the
Duke game and write about that one instead. Duke lost, and that was
cool, but my editors told me I couldn’t write about the Blue
Devils.
So UCLA basketball it was.
And after a couple hours in front of the television with Steve
Physioc and Marques Johnson and FIFA 2005 (I discovered a glitch in
the game where I can amass unlimited money) during commercials, I
guess I’m supposed to be happy right now. I just don’t
know what to say, because UCLA won a game it absolutely had to
win.
The Bruins played well and won without making UCLA fans worry. I
suppose that’s somewhat noteworthy.
But the one thing I continue to think about is how the hell UCLA
lost to this same Bears team when it came to Pauley Pavilion. I
know that it’s sort of unfair to continue to criticize the
Bruins for that horrible performance, but come on.
That 64-51 loss was just really, really bad, and I’m still
more than a little bit upset about it. Cal is not a good team. Had
UCLA won that game, they could almost be playing for seeding right
now instead of for tournament life.
But the past is in the past, and it would be very unfair to the
Bruins to withhold credit when it is most certainly due.
UCLA coach Ben Howland deserves a lot of that credit for
devising a much better game plan to face the Bears this time
around. David Paris, the same dude who was 10-for-11 from the field
at Pauley, was a non-factor. Though Cal didn’t employ the
zone for the entire game like they did in the first meeting, the
Bruins were prepared for it when it came.
UCLA’s defense was tremendous Thursday night. They played
tough, solid man-to-man, helped around screens, and rotated for a
ton of steals. Which brings me to Josh Shipp, who is quickly
becoming one of my favorite players on this team.
Shipp is critical to the Bruins’ success. It seems like he
does something good on every single possession, whether it’s
getting an offensive rebound, a steal, or cutting to the hoop for
an easy basket. He’s the kind of player I love, because he
does so many things well even when he’s not scoring.
Michael Fey even looked pretty good on Thursday. When the Bruins
double-team the post, Fey’s inadequacies on defense
aren’t nearly as glaring. And sometimes he shows flashes of
being a fairly decent offensive player.
I have opinions of every player, but those will have to wait for
another day.
On this day, the Bruins once again won a game they had to
win.
From this point on, every game is pressure-packed. It’s a
sports cliche to say the next game is always the most important,
but that’s doubly true when UCLA faces Stanford on Sunday,
with sole possession of third place in the Pac-10 at stake.
Win and they’re pretty much in.
Lose, and, well, we’ll see. At least there will be
something to say.
Regan is a basketball columnist. E-mail him at
dregan@media.ucla.edu.