One of Chianti Dan's most "brilliant" moves was to have UCLA plays its home games on the USC campus. There is no defending this move and tonight UCLA will be the ultimate non-home home game against USC on their campus in a rundown arena as the home team:

The UCLA basketball team has played host at the Sports Arena 11 times this season as Pauley Pavilion undergoes renovations, winning seven of those games.

Tonight's matchup will be unlike any of those, though.

This time, the opponent needs to just roll out of bed to make it to the arena.

While the Bruins will "host" USC at 7:30 p.m., they are expecting quite the turf war.

"Our gym is on their campus; it's what, not even 50 yards from the Coliseum?" UCLA sophomore center Joshua Smith said.

Smith and other players added their thoughts on the "home court."

All of our games haven't really felt like home games so this isn't really anything new," center Joshua Smith said. "People have said that they will have a lot of fans there being that it is on their campus, but it doesn't matter. We're just going to go out there and play." . . .

"I'm not concerned at all," guard Tyler Lamb said. "We're not playing to see how many fans go to the game, we're playing to win. That's the main thing. We are playing on SC's campus, but I still feel like it's a home game for us. We've been playing there all year and we've adjusted to it pretty well. I think we're still going to get great fan support."

"I really do want to see if we're going to have more fans than them," guard Lazeric Jones said. "I'm sure we'll get more of our fans out there. Hopefully I don't have to go out and recruit fans."

Continue reading this post »

The good news is we play USC tomorrow night. While UCLA is struggling, UCLA fans can take some small solace in that USC may have the worst basketball team in its history. Jim Healy's tape of Charles Barkley from years ago, sums up Southern Cal basketball now.

So, how bad is it?

USC ranks 342 out of 344 teams in points per game. They have earned this ranking shooting the 335th worst in the nation from three (the same as UCLA's Saturday opponent St. John's) and a whopping 39% overall. In other words, they are third worst in the nation at scoring points, ninth worst shooting from three and still in the top 20 over-all worst at field goal percentage. It is any wonder, they have not broken 50 points their last three games?

The bad news does not stop for USC. Since UCLA beat them the first time, they have lost their starting center who was their leader in field goal percentage, blocked shots, and their second best rebounder. They literally do not have a big man off the bench and their starting PG, Maurice Jones, is averaging an insane 38 minutes per game.

This team is unbelievably bad. If not for one game against Utah they would have went 0 for the Pac-12. This is not a trap game, but rather a fire-the-coach-and-take-away-the-scholarships-from-the-players- right-now-if-you-lose kind of game.

Continue reading this post »

Last week we were talking about Ben Howland team making a season-saving run in our remaining regular season games to somehow get into the Big Dance. The closing stretch on paper at least was set up favorably for UCLA. Bruins theoretically could finish up the regular season with a 7-1 or 8-0 record, and then somehow sneak into the Big Dance by winning at least 2 games in the Pac-12 tournament. DC Bruins had laid out the blueprint noting how the Bruins could have positioned themselves for a run in the tournament by finishing in the top-4 of the conference.

Well after getting drubbed by a very well coached Cal team at home, those scenarios are not looking so hot for the Bruins. Think about it for a moment. In perhaps the worst Pac-12 conference in last 30 years, Bruins may not finish even in the top-4. Perhaps the Bruins can still manage to put together a 6-0 finish to the regular season, but at this point winning a game against Arizona at Tucson looks to be a long shot. On top of that it is hard to imagine a realistic scenario of Bruins getting into the Dance by winning 4 games in 4 days during the Pac-12 tournament. A program like UCLA should never be in that situation.

Yet that is the situation we are in. It looks more than likely UCLA is set to miss the Big Dance for the second time in three years under Howland. This will of course be the third time under Howland's career Bruins will find themselves without a dance ticket. But we have always given him a mulligan for his first miss attributing it the preceding dysfunctional and incompetent regime.

This brings us couple of issues - a short term one and a long term one - pertaining to UCLA basketball. Let's get to them after jump.

Continue reading this post »

There's a vein of thought running through the wider Bruin Nation about the viability of Coach Ben Howland, which BN reader Strathmore&Gayley summed up fairly well in the comment thread on this morning's post-Cal game breakdown:

Losing to Cal has become a UCLA tradition. I’m sorry Howlers, you don’t have a leg to Howl on. Howland is not a winner. He couldn’t win a NC with 2 NBA all stars on his team, he won’t win one without any viable NBA material on his team. This is a disgrace. His tenure must be ended. We need a new coach.

I've seen other readers expressing similar thoughts over the last few months about Howland and the wealth of talent UCLA had during those Final Four runs, but until this morning, I never really took the time to look into it. So, let's compare Howland's rosters on those three Final Four teams and the teams that knocked them out of the NCAA tournament and see if Howland properly utilized the talent he had and simply came up short, or if he mismanaged his squad, costing UCLA at least its twelfth national title in men's hoops. Obviously, post-college success is a very rough measure of talent, but for this purpose, I think it works (i.e. you don't get into the NBA if you suck, and likewise, you don't spend your career playing in the Spanish second division, Poland, or Austria if you're very good).

So, let's walk through those rosters, both for UCLA and our opponents, and see how Ben fared, after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

One thing was clear on Saturday's game against the Bruins, the Cal Golden Bears are the better team:

UCLA is clearly a notch below California. The Golden Bears are the only conference team that has easily dispatched UCLA and they have now done it twice this season. The Bruins have been within single digits in each of their other four conference losses and could easily be in the mix for the regular-season conference title, but they trailed Cal by as many as 24 in their 85-69 loss on Dec. 31 and were down by 17 in the second half Saturday.

The Bruins are eying the Pac-12 tournament as their best shot at an NCAA tournament berth, but they are more than likely headed toward the NIT, especially if they run into the Golden Bears at Staples Center in March.

The game was eerily similar to the first game. A reasonably close game until Cal went on a big second half run to destroy the Bruins. A slight difference is this time the Bruins made a run.

Just like in their first meeting, when Cal blasted UCLA, 85-69, the Golden Bears took control with a second-half surge. UCLA trailed, 32-26, at halftime Saturday, but the Bruins got only one defensive stop on Cal's first 12 possessions of the second half and had a 56-39 lead with 13:24 to play.

That run seemed to suck all the life out of the Bruins, who seemed resigned to defeat over the next five minutes as Cal maintained its lead. Coach Ben Howland wouldn't have any of it. During a timeout, he chastised the team for giving up and implored them to keep fighting.

The Bruins responded, cutting the Cal lead to 66-59 with 3:15 to play, but could not get any closer.

"I was kind of disappointed the way were kind of hanging our head when we had the big deficit and I really got on them and we really fought back at that point," Howland said. "You never hang your head, you never quit, you never give up, you keep fighting always. Hopefully that's a lesson learned from today. You can't ever display that."

That run was led by the player of the game for the Bruins:

UCLA STAR OF THE GAME:Jerime Anderson scored 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting for the Bruins, who shot only 39.7 percent for the game. Anderson's 3-pointer just before halftime helped UCLA stay close at 32-26 when it looked as if Cal might take a double-digit halftime lead.

Anderson also brought the Bruins back from oblivion when he scored nine points during a 12-2 run that closed a 64-47 deficit to 66-59 with 3:13 to play. Anderson's 3-pointer ended that run.

Continue reading this post »

Put to rest all thoughts and pipe dreams of a potential at-large berth to the tournament. If the Bruins were walking a tightrope before, following the 73-63 drubbing Cal gave Ben Howland's listless, confused, hapless team, that rope has snapped. Against a marginally talented but well coached Bears squad, the Bruins put on a performance eerily reminiscent of the first game up in Berkeley: A somewhat close game blown wide open right after halftime.

Howland's other chance to make the tournament also took a major hit. At 7-6 in conference, the Bruins are now 2 games out of 4th place in the loss column, and are looking squarely at the four wins in four days road to the play-in game. How exciting.

Though the game was close in the first half, the signs of the impending meltdown were all there. The Bruins played disinterested and selfishly. Aimless passing around the perimeter and ill fated one on one drives were all the offense UCLA seemed to be able to muster, and but for a few lucky shots by Lazeric Jones, the game probably would have been over at halftime.

Continue reading this post »

Bruins got off to a decent start in our final stretch of the season by taking care of the Trees on the Thursday night. With the victory against Stanford UCLA has now put together a nice little 10 game winning streak at our "home" away from home. Still the winning streak has come at the expense of some really bad to average teams. Well this afternoon the Bruins will have an opportunity to make a statement against perhaps the only decent (somewhat) program in the Pac-12 conference.

The Bears are not in the top-25 but under Coach Mike Montgomery they are getting the best out of the talent available in their roster. If the Bruins can hold serve against them this afternoon, it should give us another boost with 6 games left in the regular season. You can check out the BN game notes here. The official UCLA preview is here and game tracker is here. The tip off is scheduled for 1:07 PM (PST) on FSN/PT.

With that let's get the show started. This is your open game thread. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.

Let's go over some quick game day notes before we get set for the tip off the "biggest test of the season." The tip-off is scheduled for 1:07 pm PST (FSN and Prime Ticket). It is worth repeating that this is very much a must-win game if the Bruins want to hold on to any hope of salvaging this underachieving season and get into the dance. If you are looking to do a quick read through the news highlights this am, here are the key bullets:

Bruins health - looking good: Bruins are relatively healthy heading into today's matchup. Travis Wear, who missed the Wazzu game with a high ankle sprain, played 28 minutes in the Trees and "felt all right." [LA Times].

Eye on (bad) free throw shooting: If the Bruins want to pull out a win this afternoon, they will have to get the job at the free throw line. They have been atrocious to date, going only 65.2% during Pac-12 play. Our guys went 10 for 15 in a two-point loss to Washington and 10 for 21 in a seven-point loss to Oregon. Something to keep an eye on what could be a close game at the Sports Arena this afternoon. [LA Times].

More after the jump.

Continue reading this post »