ANAHEIM “”mdash; Most seasons, the UCLA men’s basketball team uses winter break to collect wins over smaller non-conference schools, gift-wrapped and handed to the Bruins as early Christmas presents.
Between the lack of a home arena, a starter expelled and a slow start to the year, this season hasn’t been like most.
It was beginning to look a lot like the winters of the past Saturday at the Honda Center where UCLA trashed UC Davis, 82-39. The Bruins (5-5) neither trailed nor took their foot off the pedal, cruising to a win that finally brought them back up to .500 after a 1-4 start.
It’s easy to think about the soft non-conference portion of the Bruins’ schedule as an afterthought, but that’s not the case in a season like this. After suffering through one of the worst starts in school history, the Bruins relish every chance to notch a win even if it comes against weaker competition.
“The season didn’t start as well as we wanted to, we’ve already been through that,” sophomore center Joshua Smith said. “We’ve just got to put ourselves in the best position to go to the (NCAA) tournament. We already know we’ve lost five games, but we’re just trying to keep winning our non-conference games, which is kind of big for us.”
UCLA started the game on a 10-0 run in three minutes. UC Davis (1-9) couldn’t crack double-digits until 2:15 remained in the half. By then, the Bruins were up 43-11.
Smith dominated the Aggies’ overmatched big men and posted his first double-double of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
“Usually when I catch the ball the doubles come right away,” Smith said. “For them, they were kind of stagnant coming towards me. As long as I have one-on-one I’ve got to be aggressive.”
There were plenty of personal bests set on the day: redshirt sophomore David Wear had 15 points, sophomore guard Tyler Lamb had nine points and seven assists and freshman guard Norman Powell had 10 rebounds, all career-highs.
“Coach (Ben Howland) said we want somebody to grab more than five rebounds, so I took it upon myself to go in there,” Powell said.
The game hit a lull at the beginning of the second half, when UC Davis went on a meager 6-0 run. Howland implored his players to “Play hard!” but called a timeout at the first sign of lax play. UCLA proceeded to go on a 20-0 run to make it 74-27.
“It was a good combination of them not playing well and us playing really well,” Howland said.
UCLA improved to 3-0 since Howland kicked Reeves Nelson off the team, a jarring moment that has yet to have an adverse impact on the Bruins’ performance.
“Our team has become more cohesive with everything we went through,” Howland said. “We have to continue to stay healthy and keep improving.”
The Bruins weren’t fully healthy just yet. Still missing is redshirt sophomore Travis Wear, out of the hospital but still not in uniform after suffering an infection in his cut foot.
Howland is hoping Travis Wear will rejoin practice soon. When he does he’ll return to a team that’s getting back to winning ways, usually an expectation but a standard UCLA has failed to live up to.
“This is the same team before the season started that was ranked in the top 25,” Smith said. “We have high expectations, we still do.”
UCLA has two more chances to notch wins — whether they’re gifted to them or earned — before Pac-12 play starts, Tuesday against UC Irvine and Friday against Richmond.
“These are two more opportunities for us to go out and play hard and hopefully get these wins and get ready for Cal and Stanford two games above .500,” Smith said.