Men’s basketball’s deficient dance with Sun Devils results in third straight loss

This post was updated Jan. 24 at 11:25 p.m.

Garbage time is frequently defined as when a team is leading by double digits with only a couple minutes left in the game.

The winning team dials back the intensity with a win in the bag, giving the losing team an opportunity to go on a run and cut into the final deficit.

On Thursday, garbage time came at the beginning instead of the end.

UCLA men’s basketball (10-9, 3-3 Pac-12) started the game on an 11-0 run, but Arizona State (14-5, 5-2) spent the first half climbing back and the second half pulling away for an 84-73 road victory.

“There’s no secret formulas here,” interim coach Murry Bartow said. “If we make free throws, if we don’t turn it over, if we make open 3s – and I thought we probably missed 15 to 20 shots within four feet of the rim. The officials obviously were letting it go on both ends, but it was physical on both ends. To be honest, we worked all week on finishing against contact and we did miss a lot of shots around the rim.”

The most fight the Bruins showed was during extracurriculars.

Sophomore guard Kris Wilkes picked up a flagrant foul in the first half when he swung his elbow and hit Arizona State forward Taeshon Cherry in the face. Wilkes also earned a technical foul after scuffling with Sun Devil guard Luguentz Dort following a dunk.

UCLA’s full-court press and 2-3 zone defense couldn’t withstand constant pressure from the visitors.

Arizona State pulled down 15 offensive rebounds and shot 51.7 percent from the floor in the second half. The Sun Devils went on separate 7-1 and 8-1 runs to turn a one-point halftime deficit into a double-digit lead.

“We were in this situation at USC and at Oregon State – end the game at half and then they come out with a big run five, six minutes into the second half,” said sophomore guard Jaylen Hands. “ It wasn’t like we weren’t aware (of it). … We just have to be more dialed in, more focused, that’s all I have to say.”

Guard Remy Martin recorded a double-double with 15 points – 13 in the second half – and 11 assists.

UCLA struggled from the field in the second half, shooting only 32.3 percent. It was the second straight game in which the Bruins shot under 40 percent from the floor in the second half to lose by double digits.

“We had a lot of opportunities to hit shots and we just didn’t take them,” Wilkes said. “I had a few opportunities that I should’ve hit and then I didn’t hit. As a team, it just trickles down and everybody’s missing a lot of shots, missing free throws. You have to hit those shots to win the game.”

Bartow’s squad also had three turnovers on possessions immediately following a timeout and finished with 15 giveaways.

Wilkes and Hands finished with 15 points apiece to lead UCLA, but no other players scored in double figures.

The Bruins shot 36 percent on 3-pointers and 47.6 percent on free throws. The last time they made 40 percent of their 3-pointers in a game was in November, and they’ve made less than half of their free throws in three consecutive games.

“I thought the second half, too many turnovers hurt us, lack of play on the glass hurt us,” Bartow said. “Obviously free throw shooting, we’re (10-of-21), that hurt us and then I thought we had multiple really good looks from our best players. It just didn’t go in.”

Alumna sizes up fashion market, launching new line of size-inclusive clothing

Shoshanna Gruss has been planning the release of her most recent clothing line for 20 years – ever since she graduated from UCLA.

Gruss produced C’est Nous by Shoshanna, a size-inclusive extension of her own brand, Shoshanna, in collaboration with Gwynnie Bee, an online clothing subscription. The line offers a mixture of casual and professional dresses in sizes 0 to 32. The collaboration marks a step toward her goal to create more inclusive clothing, hurdling the financial constriction that held her back in the early days of the brand, Gruss said.

“When I first started, inclusive sizing was really not a priority for manufacturers. There was no H&M or Target the way we know it, and the higher end stores like Bloomingdale’s would only have a small selection,” Gruss said. “It just wasn’t a category people paid attention to.”

While Gruss’ plan to produce the line only came into fruition in January, her own brand Shoshanna launched 20 years ago. In designing her first collections, she said the people producing her line established that mainstream retail was only selling sizes 0 to 12. However, she said extending size options for her first lines proved unrealistic, considering her brand was confined to the start-up budget of a young mom.

Preferring the term “size-inclusive” to “plus-size,” Gruss said she sees C’est Nous as a celebration of different body types. Identifying as a woman who didn’t fit into the specific mold manufacturers thought women should look like, Gruss faced her own struggles in finding the right fit.

“I was born what I was born. I used to feel super crappy when I was younger when nothing looked right,” Gruss said. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute – no one is making clothes that fit me.'”

Gruss said in the past she has had to buy two sets of the same swimsuit in differences sizes to get the right fit or even had to have them custom-made. Sourcing motivation from feeling like an outlier in the sizing world ultimately gave her the push to expand her brand’s reach, she said. More importantly, Gruss said the variety in sizes allowed for people to mix and match styles of differing measurements. Arguing that stores would never sell underwear and bras as a set but continued to sell items like bathing suits in sets, Gruss insisted on size 13 tops and size 8 bottoms in her own collection.

“When we started thinking about it again, about two years ago, especially with more outlets that had extended sizes, we were wanting to do it right and reach this great market with Gwynnie Bee,” Gruss said.

In addition to the collaboration, Francesca de la Rama, a buyer for Gwynnie Bee, said the brand aims to make such items more affordable, particularly concerning the more expensive pieces in Shoshanna’s C’est Nous line. While the service carries dresses ranging from around $400 to $700 in retail prices, Gwynnie Bee offers its clients substantially discounted prices should clients like the pieces enough to permanently add them to their wardrobe, said de la Rama.

Shiho Makimura, a senior buyer for Gwynnie Bee, said that because Gwynnie Bee is a rental service, its clients are only paying for the monthly service, which costs around $69 monthly after a first month free. Within the line, no sizes are marked as “plus” or “inclusive sizing,” creating a more inviting shopping experience for buyers of all shapes and sizes, Gruss said.

“It’s great that brands like Shoshanna are willing to work with us to expand their size range and that more and more retailers are realizing the opportunity to extend their sizes,” Makimura said.

Examining the larger world of high fashion, Gruss says the market also needs to address the women willing to invest in expensive pieces of more inclusive sizing, something she said her own company attempts to do by offering some dresses priced at around $500. Still, she said there aren’t many women fitting into that bracket of luxury buyers, so her mission is to offer the same quality and tailoring that comes from a designer piece to her clientele’s wardrobes.

While Gruss acknowledges there is some testing of inclusive sizing in the more high fashion market, it is clear to her that it still sits in the extremes, remaining inaccessible to her average client, she said. In this sense, Gruss said she sees her clothing as a medium bridging affordability and specialized design to women who are willing and able to pay around $250 for a good quality dress. While maintaining that the fashion market will be slower to expand its sizing, with magazines and blogs in tow, Gruss said she is hopeful for more inclusive sizing to join her in the industry.

“At the end of the day, I think that designers want their customers to be happy and they want to make money, so if they see that there’s money in these markets and women want to spend that money, I’m sure that they will move into those categories soon,” she said.

Op-ed: Scooters on campus pose a threat to the safety of UCLA’s campus

Scooters are menaces on our campus that cause injuries to innocent people.

The injuries can even get as bad as a broken hip. In fact, that has already happened at UCLA.

On Sept. 24, at about 11:15 a.m., Juming Zhao, a consultant to universities in China, was walking on Charles E. Young Drive South, crossing the street to Tiverton Drive, and hit by an individual riding a scooter. Three students helped Zhao stand up, but the person responsible for the accident fled the scene.

Zhao phoned his wife, Su Chen, the head librarian of the UCLA East Asian Library. Chen took Zhao to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center emergency department, and the attending doctor examined Zhao and ordered an X-ray. At that time, the doctor told Zhao he did not find any fractures on his hip and discharged him. During this visit, the emergency department nurse mentioned to Zhao and Chen that there have been several scooter injuries on campus.

Zhao’s diagnosis changed early the next morning when his primary care physician phoned to inform him that the radiologist had reviewed his X-ray and found his right hip had fractured. The physician requested Zhao to immediately return to the medical center for surgery.

Zhao was operated on the next day. He was bedridden for a week and walked with the assistance of a walker and cane for three months. Zhao had to cancel all of his consulting work for the remainder of 2018.

To this day, he still walks with pain. He can only hope the injury will heal and not adversely affect him for the rest of his life.

UCPD received the report of Zhao’s injury from the hospital emergency department on the same day of the accident. A campus police officer came to see Zhao at the hospital and interviewed him regarding the scooter accident. Several days later, another police officer came to Zhao’s home for a second interview, informing him that several scooter incidents had occurred on campus and that the department had not been able to trace and apprehend the people responsible for those accidents.

UCLA is a world-class institute of higher learning contributing to the teaching and growth of future generations of leaders. It troubles me that someone, most likely a student, collided with Zhao and got away without any sense of responsibility or concern for their victim. The fact that the UCPD has responded to other cases of scooter accidents, but were unable to apprehend the scooter riders causing the accidents, speaks to the issue of moral responsibility of not only the unconscionable riders, but also the bystanders who witnessed such accidents.

In light of the scooter accidents and injuries inflicted on the victims, I urge UCLA to ban scooters on campus until rules are put in place to ensure the safety and health of the community, especially the elderly and those with disabilites.

The encouragement of our Bruin community members to walk or bike on campus will not only contribute to everyone’s personal safety, but will provide a healthy alternative to the use of scooters.

Li is a research professor and professor emeritus in the Fielding School of Public Health’s department of community health sciences.

UCLA Dining Services fails students with insufficient gluten-free considerations

When family weekend finally rolled around during my first quarter at UCLA, I was most excited to show off the amazing food on the Hill.

Then again, I hadn’t considered my dad, who has celiac disease, would be poisoned within the first five minutes of eating in a dining hall.

Celiac disease and gluten intolerance are conditions in which the body responds negatively to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, with effects ranging from fatigue to malnutrition. While gluten-free diets have become more popular in recent years and awareness has increased, it doesn’t look like it for students on the Hill with celiac disease or gluten intolerance.

Many of UCLA Dining Services’ dishes contain gluten, and the few that don’t are often prepared in kitchens with gluten contaminants, making it difficult to avoid cross contamination. The dining halls provide allergen legends, which mark foods that contain wheat, but these labels do not cover the scope of different grains containing gluten. And while students can access the gluten-free pantries in De Neve dining hall and Bruin Plate, they must contact the Center for Accessible Education and fill out an extensive form to do so.

These students pay the same amount of money others do for a meal plan, but the university provides unequal levels of access to its high-quality cuisine. In doing so, students with gluten intolerance and celiac disease are cheated out of the UCLA dining experience and constantly risk exposure to contaminants in order to eat with their peers on the Hill. If the university claims to prioritize its students’ health and academic success, it must address this issue in order to ensure these priorities.

Students can’t be expected to function in UCLA’s rigorous academic setting if they are unable to easily access proper nutrition, and no student should have to fear getting sick from trying to enjoy the food here.

Madeline Utter, a first-year undeclared student, is diagnosed with celiac disease and said the lack of gluten-free options often affects her performance in school and her overall well-being.

“I go to a lot of classes hungry because a lot of people grab a bagel or a sandwich before class, but I can’t do that, so sometimes I just have a bar. Or sometimes I have nothing,” Utter said. “It definitely impacts you academically when you’re hungry all the time or you feel sick from eating gluten.”

Eating on the Hill is even harder for students with dietary restrictions and gluten intolerance. Sophia Donskoi, a first-year public affairs student who is gluten intolerant and vegan, often has to choose between eating food with a risk of gluten exposure and feeling sick, or going through the beginning of her day hungry – a ridiculous choice that a student should never have to make.

UCLA Dining Services said there are gluten-free pantries that contain toasters, microwaves and certified gluten-free dishes.

“Students who have medically diagnosed celiac disease or other medical conditions where their doctor has advised them to avoid gluten can get access to the gluten-free pantry to augment their food choices,” said Alison Hewitt, a UCLA spokesperson.

The process to gain access to the gluten-free pantry is painstaking, though. Utter said it took her two months to finalize the process over the summer, complete with multiple doctors visits in which she had her blood drawn.

Being able to easily access food that doesn’t make you sick should be the norm, but the process UCLA dining has set in place seems more like a trial.

According to a survey by Forbes, only 3 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are vegan. Yet UCLA dining consistently offers vegan options, a diet that is not commonly followed for medical reasons. This highlights a stark discrepancy: UCLA does a fantastic job catering to a variety of diets, from vegetarian and vegan to kosher and halal, but students with a serious gluten sensitivity are forced to get their food from a separate, locked room if they want to ensure they won’t get sick.

Meal plans are by no means cheap, and if students with gluten intolerance and celiac disease are paying for food on the Hill, UCLA has a responsibility to provide them with the same high-quality food others get to enjoy.

Instead of providing locked gluten-free pantries, UCLA Dining Services should convert one station at every dining hall into a strictly gluten-free preparation area. Not only would it help students access food more conveniently without fear of cross contamination, but it would also ensure gluten-intolerant students don’t have go through CAE to eat food that won’t harm them.

The switch toward gluten-free options might seem a costly project. But, despite popular belief, gluten-free meals don’t all come from Whole Foods with a $20 price tag. In fact, most people eat gluten-free foods quite often without even being aware of it – meals don’t have to consist of gluten-free bread or other special accommodations, as long as they are filling and prepared in a kitchen without contaminants.

Unless the university can provide gluten-intolerant students with better alternatives, they shouldn’t be paying for a 14P meal plan to microwave their food in a locked room. Students aren’t lying their way into eating rice-based pasta.

And on the off chance they were, bringing gluten-free options to the menu would make it so they wouldn’t have to.

Men’s basketball narrowly leads Arizona State 44-43 at halftime

The first UCLA men’s basketball turnover came six minutes, 50 seconds into the game.

It was a stark contrast from three of the past four games, in which the Bruins committed more than 20 turnovers.

But over the next 10 minutes, UCLA gave the ball away six times.

That, combined with nine offensive rebounds by Arizona State, helped the visiting Sun Devils erase an 11-0 deficit to start the game. The Bruins lead 44-43 at halftime.

UCLA finished the first half with eight turnovers, leading to 12 fastbreak points for Arizona State.

Interim coach Murry Bartow inserted redshirt freshman forward Jalen Hill into the starting lineup over sophomore forward Chris Smith, and Hill’s energy carried over to an alley-oop dunk 90 seconds into the game.

All nine Bruins who entered the game scored, with none reaching double digits.

Freshman guard David Singleton and sophomore guard Kris Wilkes led the team with eight points apiece.

On the other end, UCLA’s’ full-court pressure defense hounded Arizona State into missing 12 of its first 15 shots.

But with the help of turnovers, the Sun Devils crept back into the game.

Guard Remy Martin fed eight assists to his teammates and his only two points came on a poster dunk over redshirt junior guard Prince Ali.

Forward Kimani Lawrence leads Arizona State with nine points.

Women’s basketball preps to put end to losing streak in Arizona over weekend

Lauryn Miller said the Bruins need to be aggressive if they want to find success in their matchups this weekend.

“We know how gritty Arizona State is and (we’re) making sure we try to match that,” said the sophomore forward. “We know that they’re going to come out and fight from the start.”

UCLA women’s basketball will travel to No. 16 Arizona State (13-5, 4-3 Pac-12) on Friday and Arizona (13-5, 3-4 Pac-12) on Sunday, after dropping its fourth consecutive game to USC last weekend.

“(Arizona State is) one of the best teams in the country about guarding the paint as well as helping and taking charges,” said coach Cori Close. “(Their defense) also makes rebounding that much harder because they’re already there, they’re already cinched up.”

The Sun Devils – ranked sixth in the Pac-12 in rebounding – are averaging 40.1 boards per game while holding their opponents to of 31.9 per game.

Offensively, senior guard Kennedy Burke said the Bruins will be challenged when trying to drive.

“Arizona State is a great help defensive team,” Burke said. “Straight line drives are not always going to be there, so we have to look for the kick out for 3-point shooters.”

The Bruins are shooting an average of 27.4 percent from the 3-point line, while the Sun Devils are holding their opponents to 32.2 percent from behind the arc.

Burke said UCLA has to dominate the glass if they want a victory Friday.

“(We) have to create space by going around them, doing a swim move to get the board,” Burke said. “That’s what we’re best at, grabbing boards.”

The guard is one of the top three rebounders for UCLA, pulling down an average of 5.9 per game. Despite her presence on the boards, Burke plays an average of 32.3 minutes and is responsible for the second most turnovers.

“The biggest thing (against Arizona State) is you don’t want to have any live ball turnovers,” said Close. “You have to be able to have the toughness to screen well, to take care of the ball (and) to pass well.”

The Sun Devils averaged 10.3 points off turnovers in its three most recent contests.

“We’re going to have to hit some outside shots in order to pull them away from the basket a little bit more,” said Close. “We have to handle their pressure.”

Friday’s game marks the fifth time in their last six games that the Bruins will face a ranked team.

On Sunday, UCLA will stay in Arizona to challenge the Wildcats at the McKale Memorial Center in Tuscon.

Arizona guard Aari McDonald leads the Pac-12 in points per game – averaging 24.9 a contest. McDonald is also second in the conference with an average of 2.5 steals a game.

“In the last several years, Arizona has played much more zone than they’re playing (this season),” Close said. “McDonald’s one of the most explosive guards in the country.”

The Wildcats rank second in the Pac-12 in steals and fifth in blocks, averaging 9.3 and 3.7 per game, respectively.

Miller said that both Arizona State and Arizona will be defensive challenges over the weekend.

“In the scheme of things, they both fight really hard,” Miller said. “We’ll definitely adjust for their go-to players, but it really comes down to our fight.”

The Bruins will take on the Sun Devils on Jan. 25 at 10 a.m. and the Wildcats on Jan. 27 at 1 p.m.