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UCLA Basketball China: Notes From Tsinghua Demolition

Once again huge thanks to Ganplosive for sharing his notes from his hoops to China. From thousands here on BruinsNation let's give a huge eight clap to him. GO BRUINS. - BN Eds.

Tsinghua
Bruins having a good time v. Tsinghua Univeristy. Photo via @UCLAMBB.

As expected, my vpn and phone were not in too good a shape to allow for on-scene game threading but like many others have said here, the game itself was ESSENTIALLY an exhibition by the UCLA MBB. Though I don't have my camera or computer right now, I'll try and see if I can post some of the more highlight photos from the game though most of the ones posted here pretty much speak very much for themselves.

First of all - FUSC was great, I saw fans wearing FUSC shirts and every player and logo throughout the game F'USCed. I fully support FUSC and hope that FUSC can put forth more events for the PAC-12 to participate in.

The play calling was very, very "expected" where a foul was called almost every single play, mostly against UCLA. At once point UCLA had around 9 fouls to Tsinghua's 2, but despite the issue UCLA was still 20+ points over our opponents, and I don't recall UCLA ever being within 10 points with Tsinghua since 5 minutes into the game.

CBH played fairly conservatively, switching in players whenever he can. Even the Chinese supporters sitting behind us were wondering why UCLA keeps switching players lol. Eventually some of the girls sitting behind us were more amused by Joe Bruin than they are by the players.

While the game wasn't close, the fans all seemed to have enjoyed themselves clapping for both UCLA and Tsinghua whenever points were scored. Of course the crowd gets rowdier for Tsinghua, but whenever UCLA makes a good play the fans were cheering as well. Now on to some more game notes after the jump.

Stamina - VERY hard to gauge. the game was stopped so often by the refs that despite playing 4 quarters none of the players seemed to be struggling at all. Maybe it's the lack of competition but all the free-throws made the pacing of the game a breeze. lmfao but I think Joshua actually had less foul trouble in this game than most games last year, and he was an absolute wall for the Chinese players. Very entertaining to watch by everyone and they even called him "xiao sha yu" or "small shark", in reference to small Shaq. (Shark was Shaq's beloved nickname in the Chinese speaking world).

Free-throws - The Bruins didn't have too many chances at the line, but for all the ones we got (somewhere around 20 free throws), we've made about 3/4ths of them. Granted, the game was never down the wire and the equipment might be a lil different but we shot them with a real loose hand.

Defense - Tsinghua absolutely had no chance inside, and our blocks were, lolol, everywhere. While that may sound like a good thing I'm actually concerned about our ability to defend the 3. Tsinghua got a couple damn good threes on us further down the stretch when they realized the couldn't size up and get inside. But to be fair, we were so far ahead of Tsinghua that we probably just didn't bother to defend it too much, preventing fouls and further free throws.

Offense - the players were smooth. Transitions were clean and passes were plenty and with urgency. Again, this is Tsinghua defense but I definitely felt like last years awkward passes and team chemistry were vastly improved. Perhaps it's because the games were played with a lighter sense of urgency and that the game felt like a skills exhibition, but offensive rebounds were plenty and the players FINISHED THE PLAY. Steals were happening left and right and the boys were intercepting passes all game. Even though we weren't able to see too much of Kyle or any of the highly touted class, there was definite improvement from last year. AGAIN, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS WAS AGAINST TSINGHUA U.

some other tidbits were just the slippery court that made a couple players trip and fall, and one hilarious situation where Josh went up to get the ball but the Chinese player ducked and remained in a ducking position, forcing Josh to trip on him and rolling around for a bit on his back before falling onto the ground.

All in all, the night was great fun for everyone that came out and there was NOT A SINGLE shred of hostility between anyone. Our players and refs were exchanging smiles and all the Chinese fans were excited about the prospect of seeing some future NBA players. The event finished with a strong sense of camaraderie and for the alumni's that attended the night was much enjoyed.

- Ganplosive

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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