BERKELEY “”mdash; UCLA coach Ben Howland made it clear to his
team that he wanted a change in his team’s perimeter-oriented
offense. He emphasized all week the necessity of making sure the
ball found its way to post, and that meant in junior Michael
Fey’s hands. Right from the start, it was clear the Bruins
were making a concerted effort to balance out their attack, as Fey
took 10 field goal attempts in the first half. By comparison, he
had 17 attempts in his previous five games combined. “That
was our game plan coming in,” freshman Arron Afflalo said.
“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t get touches.
He’s not a selfish guy; he’ll throw the ball back out.
I’m glad we did that, and we should’ve done it more in
the second half.” UCLA got mixed results from feeding their
7-foot center as Fey, one of the Pac-10 leaders in field goal
percentage, shot only 3-of-10 in the first half, finishing the
night with eight points on 4-for-11 shooting. “I just need to
slow down and take my time,” Fey said. “I missed some
shots that I normally make. I just need to keep posting strong and
doing the things I was doing tonight, I should be fine.”
Though he took only one shot in the second half, it was a critical
one. With California trying to mount a comeback and trailing by 11,
Fey snatched an offensive rebound and softly laid in the put-back,
giving UCLA some much-needed breathing room. “He was hurrying
a few of them, but he probably wasn’t used to taking so many
shots,” Howland said. “His one shot attempt in the
second half was huge. Getting the offense to play a little more
inside-out was critical.”
HITTING THE GLASS: Although UCLA won the battle on the boards
42-37, California dominated the Bruins on the offensive glass. The
Golden Bears pulled down 17 offensive rebounds, which allowed them
to take 14 more total shots than UCLA. “They were taking long
shots and getting long rebounds,” Fey said. “But they
were definitely more aggressive in going to the ball. We need to
work more on boxing out and keeping our man from going up over
us.” Although all those extra shots didn’t hurt UCLA in
the end, Cal was clearly the more aggressive team in the second
half. “We got a little too relaxed out there when we were up
20,” senior Dijon Thompson said.
DRIBBLERS: Freshman Lorenzo Mata did not play due to a bruised
sternum suffered in practice Tuesday. He is expected to play Sunday
against Stanford … Freshman Jordan Farmar picked up a technical
foul for pushing California’s Martin Smith … Senior Josiah
Johnson and walk-on Quinn Hawking both saw action in the waning
moments of UCLA’s blowout victory … Thursday’s game
was the Bruins’ 50th with Howland as coach.