Last week, my roommate and I picked up the new Eminem album. We
were eager to see if rap’s most controversial character could
possibly live up to the enormous hype that surrounds his every
move.
After the first song, we looked at each other and shrugged.
Nice song, kind of boring, but when Eminem decides to rap
instead of screw around with singing, there are enough good moments
to make a decent first impression.
Bringing this back to something relevant, that’s how I
felt about UCLA’s first regular season basketball game
against the oxymoron that is Chicago State.
I had never seen the Bruins play, though I had heard plenty
about them. Ever since UCLA fans lost hope midway through last
season, the heralded freshman class has occupied their
conversations and imaginations.
When I sat down last week to try to predict how the Bruins would
fare this season, I caught myself rationalizing wins with Jordan
Farmar’s savvy court leadership and Arron Afflalo’s
tough perimeter defense.
Had I ever seen them play? Well, no.
But that reflects how badly fans want to buy into the hype of
our freshmen saviors.
I thus entered Pauley Pavilion Saturday with a newfound energy
and hope, something that many others noticeably shared. Farmar and
Afflalo jerseys peppered the crowd. And the student section even
managed some hatred to the anonymous opponents in green, which was
certainly brave in the aftermath of Friday’s brawl between
the Indiana Pacers’ players and the Detroit Pistons’
fans.
The game was predictably lackadaisical, perhaps because Ron
Artest was not in attendance. But the Bruins didn’t as much
win as subdue the Cougars.
The most lasting impression I came away with is that UCLA will
live and die by the jump shot and the fast break. There
doesn’t seem to be much, if any, of a low post threat.
On the one hand, jump shooting teams are wildly inconsistent and
have trouble getting it done down the stretch when shooters’
legs tire. No reliable option down low also means that shooters
will be hounded and other teams will not easily get into foul
trouble.
On the other hand, this will be a fun team to watch. The Bruins
are going to have to play to their athleticism and run and gun.
This means high scoring and fast-break highlights, a far cry from
last year’s plodding, boring offense.
They have the team to do it too. Farmar is a huge upgrade over
Cedric Bozeman in running the break and Afflalo looks like a
classic athletic slasher. When the Bruins were able to grab long
rebounds and outlet the ball to Farmar, he was in his element. He
made a number of dazzling passes and controlled the break with
confidence.
In the half court offense, though, Farmar looked considerably
more unsure and had trouble at times initiating the offense.
“We got sped up by their pressure,” coach Ben
Howland said after the game. “All (Farmar’s) turnovers
were in the half court. It’s understanding time and score.
Those are things that a young freshman is going to learn. It comes
with experience.”
On the third hand, what does all this first game analysis really
amount to?
Not much. Above all, this was Chicago State. It’s like
drawing conclusions of an Eminem concert by watching him perform at
Ackerman. I’m going to try to restrain myself for at least a
month before I start worrying and overanalyzing every last aspect
of this squad.
The game’s true importance was really summed up best by
Howland’s first words in the post-game press conference:
“I’m glad we got that one out of the way.”
It’s a long year, and let’s just revel a bit in this
1-0 start. There will be plenty of encouraging wins and frustrating
losses to dissect.
As Howland said after the game, the team has only had 25 or 26
practices, not nearly enough to get the new guys clicking with the
returnees.
We are going to have to wait until at least late January to get
a gauge on where this team is headed.
And hopefully, by then we will see that UCLA is indeed following
the path of Slim Shady’s album and spending the first half of
the season finding itself before hitting its stride and fulfilling
our expectations.
Peters is a basketball columnist. E-mail him at
bpeters@media.ucla.edu.