In one week’s time, UCLA will likely enter the NCAA Tournament as either a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, with expectations of a third consecutive Final Four weighing heavily on the Bruins’ backs.
Whether they enter that most important of all tournaments with momentum or without depends almost entirely on this weekend.
Today UCLA will play its first game in the Pac-10 Tournament, against California. The Bruins have already sewn up the regular-season Pac-10 title and now must weather another series of Pac-10 opponents ““ and perhaps more importantly, must combat their own tendency toward apathy.
“I think it’s going to be a different story heading into the first game of the Pac-10 (Tournament),” point guard Darren Collison said in regard to the lethargic play of the Bruins in recent weeks. “We have a big motivation. We’re trying to do something real special this year.”
However, last year the Bruins were also trying to do that same special thing ““ win the national championship. It did not stop them from losing to Cal in the first round of the conference tournament.
So while the Bruins say all the right things, they will have to prove on the court that they are truly taking every game seriously.
“We definitely don’t want to have a loss in this month,” swingman Josh Shipp said. “We’re definitely never satisfied. Hopefully we can learn from that mistake (last year). It cost us a (No. 1) seed.”
Last year, the Bruins lost to Washington heading into the conference tournament and then lost to Cal in the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament.
Before the loss to the Huskies, UCLA was projected to be perhaps the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, they were left as a No. 2 seed in a bracket with a dangerous Kansas team as the No. 1.
The Bruins are in a much more tenuous situation this year in terms of seeding heading into the NCAA Tournament, so it is imperative that they win at least one game this weekend to ensure a No. 1 seed. When they play Cal today, it will be the third time they have faced the Bears. In most other conference tournaments, teams do not have to worry about over-familiarity with their opponents, but in the Pac-10, due to the round-robin regular-season scheduling, the conference tournament turns into a battle of adjustments, as teams very familiar with each other can adjust to what worked and what didn’t work in their last matchup.
“It’s hard, we just played Cal, and we could play Cal again, there’s a 50 percent chance,” coach Ben Howland said on Tuesday. “And I think Washington with or without Jon (Brockman, out with an ankle injury,) will play extremely tough.
“(Playing a team three times and perhaps twice in one week) doesn’t matter because I have no control over it,” Howland said. “You can’t really spend a lot of time worrying about things you can’t control.”
Howland went on to say that in this situation, where they will not know their opponent until Wednesday night, they typically spend most of their time focusing on their own execution, especially offensively.
Guard Russell Westbrook, a freshman on last year’s team that lost to Cal in the first round, would just like to experience a little bit more this time around.
“I just want to spend more than one night there,” Westbrook said.