Bruins Escape ...

by Nestor on Dec 22, 2005 6:48 AM PST in Basketball

So the hoops team apparently had a letdown game last night barely eeking out a win over from some team for Staten Island (South of NYC). The beat Wagner 74-72. Apparently the Bruins were down in the second half until DC provided the key spark:

Collison, a freshman point guard, was especially effective. He teamed with Farmar in the backcourt in the first half to help UCLA overcome an eight-point deficit and take a 35-33 lead at halftime, then provided another spark off the bench in a critical five-minute stretch of the second half by scoring three baskets and dishing out an assist.

That brought the Bruins back from another eight-point deficit.

"I just wanted to be aggressive and help my team win," said Collison, whose 12 points are a career high. "I tried to go right at them and put the pressure on."

The close win over some no-name opponent may give some of us some reasons for concern. But as usual Coach Howland is being straight up. Here are the money grafs from Wagner wrap in UCLAbasketballBlog:

The Bruins did not display the same level of defense pressure against Wagner as it had against Michigan last weekend as evidenced by the fact they only had three steals in the entire game.

"We started the game a bit tired out there", Howland said, "after a long trip from Michigan I practiced them hard this week and I shouldn't have - as a coach I need to learn from this."

[...]

The Bruins don't have much time to rest up as they face the Sacramento St. Hornets on Friday, Dec. 23 at Pauley Pavilion. Howland will not have his team practice tomorrow in order to give them some rest.

"Instead of practice tomorrow, Howland said, "we'll watch every single defensive possession from this game".

54% FG% defense will never do for a Ben Howland coached team.

Being straight up, identifying the precise problem, and working hard to solve it. Gee ... one wonder what KD and his defensive coaching staff did after the Arizona game to solve their problems? Anyways ... Go Bruins.

Tweet Comment 2 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Repeating what I said

In an earlier thread. We shot 1-13 on 3s, and they shot 10-16. However, the bigger cause for concern is the 10-16 by the other team. That kind of perimeter defense will get us killed by a better team. We are not always going to have a good shooting night. It happens to many teams. However, teams that don't shoot well have to play good defense to keep the game close. The beginning of the Michigan game showed that. We played like absolute crap the first few minutes, but I think we only let them get up 6-0 or 8-0 when they easily could have been up 15-0. I know Wagner is supposed to be a decent team, but we are better than this. Defense wins championships!