And so it was on Saturday that I ventured down the 405 to the
105 to the 605 to the 91 to the 5 to Katella to see No. 1 UCLA take
on No. 6 Texas A&M at the Honda Center.
I predicted a blowout. I figured the Bruins had had a nice break
from competitive basketball with their show-up-and-get-a-win
victories over three consecutive Big West opponents. If there was
going to be a game where the Bruins totally showed up before their
meeting with Washington in late December, this was going to be
it.
As with a lot of things, I was mostly wrong on this one.
SLIDESHOW
Click here for more photos from the men’s basketball game vs. Texas
A&M.
The 65-62 victory by the Bruins demonstrated many things. First,
UCLA won, and thus the Bruins demonstrated that they can beat a
top-10 team, which cannot be discounted. It also demonstrated that
the Bruins can win a halfcourt type of game, despite now being a
more fastbreak-oriented team.
But most importantly, it further demonstrated a trend for the
season that could prove to be either good or bad for the Bruins
down the road.
There are four guys on this team who can score 20 points on any
given night: Josh Shipp, Arron Afflalo, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute
and Darren Collison. The problem appears to be that they cannot do
it at the same time.
Collison is the only one of the team who appears to be anything
even remotely consistent, getting double-digit points in seven out
of the first eight games. After him, however, inconsistency has
been the only consistency.
Mbah a Moute has had four dominant games and four games where he
was basically absent on the offensive end, culminating in this
weekend’s game against the Aggies in which he scored just
four points and had just two rebounds.
Afflalo has not been playing within himself, and that has shown
in my new favorite word: inconsistency. He’s had four games
where he’s scored 14 points or fewer. One game he was 5-18
from the field. For a guy who was talked up as an All-American
candidate before the season, he has not demonstrated the offensive
prowess necessary to be an All-American.
Shipp has been relatively consistent, only having two games
without double-digit scoring totals, but he has been plagued by
occasional shooting woes.
The point is, these guys cannot seem to put a complete game
together. When Shipp is hot, Afflalo and Mbah a Moute are not. When
Collison is hot, Shipp can’t be. When Luc is hot, no one else
is. It’s like the premise of an LSAT logic game.
That’s the bad part (you can tell because I compared it to
the LSAT).
The good part is that all of these guys have had great games
this year. They’ve all been able to carry the Bruins for a
stretch of games and they all have the potential to be truly
dominant.
Mbah a Moute had trouble on Saturday against the Aggies’
physical front line, but he can be expected to do better. Shipp
played more within himself on Saturday, and that can only bode well
for the rest of the year for the Bruins.
Last year, the Bruins had Jordan Farmar and Afflalo do the
scoring, and then a cast of thousands who were expected to
contribute enough to get the team above 60 points. This year, there
is always the potential for these four guys to have a solid 60 to
70 points on their own. As many motivational speakers will tell
you, the key for the Bruins is realizing their potential.
If a bell isn’t a bell until you ring it, and a song
isn’t a song until you sing it, e-mail Woods at
dwoods@media.ucla.edu.