The UCLA men’s basketball team won’t play its first conference game for more than a month, but the Bruins still don’t seem to be having any problem finding their way into marquee matchups.
No. 1 UCLA (7-0) will host No. 8 Texas (6-0) on Sunday, in what figures to be a matchup of two of the best backcourts in the country. The game will be a part of the first year of the Pac-10/Big-12 Hardwood Series.
It will be the second time in less than two weeks that UCLA will take on a top-10 opponent. On Nov. 20, UCLA overcame a 13-point deficit to defeat then-No. 10 Michigan State in the final of the CBE Classic. But while that game was characterized more by physical inside play, this game figures to hinge much more on the play of the two teams’ guards.
“(Texas is) a good program, they’ve got a good coaching staff, and they’ve got a good backcourt,” junior guard Darren Collison said.
Texas is coming off an impressive non-conference win of their own, having routed Tennessee, ranked seventh at the time, 97-78 on Nov. 24. Sophomore guard D.J. Augustin led the Longhorns with 23 points and eight assists in that game, and junior guard A.J. Abrams had 21 points of his own, while Texas shot 64 percent from the field as a team.
“I watched (Texas) destroy Tennessee,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “They’re really good. It wasn’t even close. And Tennessee is really good.”
The Bruins will counter the Longhorns guards with their own dangerous backcourt.
Collison, a pre-season All-American who had been sidelined for nearly a month with a sprained MCL, returned to UCLA’s lineup on Wednesday night, scoring 14 points and five assists in 26 minutes as the Bruins routed George Washington 83-60. Sophomore guard Russell Westbrook, who took over the point while Collison was injured, has also played very well, and had a game-high 19 points against the Colonials, along with eight assists and seven rebounds.
The game against Texas could also see another return for the Bruins: junior guard Mike Roll, sidelined for a month with a ruptured plantar fascia, has recently begun participating in contact drills again. There’s an outside chance Roll could get back onto the floor against Texas.
“(We’ll) play it by ear for Sunday,” Howland said. “(Roll’s) conditioning has got to get better.”
While the matchup against Texas may have seemed slightly more appealing when it was scheduled last year while former Longhorns star Kevin Durant was lighting up the Big-12, the Bruins are still looking forward to testing themselves against another top-10 opponent. And they have no intention of following Tennessee’s example and going down in an upset.
“I didn’t think Tennessee played nearly as hard as they could have played (against Texas),” Collison said. “That’s one thing about us, I think we’re going to always bring it each and every single game. We’re real competitive, so it’s going to be a different atmosphere on Sunday.”
NEW RECRUIT: Kendall Williams gave a verbal commitment on Tuesday to attend UCLA. The 6-foot-2-inch sophomore guard from Los Osos High in Rancho Cucamonga said that he had also received scholarship offers from USC, Washington, Florida and Arizona. Scout.com has Williams rated as a four-star player, and names him as one of the best West Coast point guards of the high school class of 2010.