This was a matter of time. I knew I was going to stumble into a quote like this:
At one point late in the game, television cameras actually caught a few UCLA players laughing after forcing yet another Arizona blunder.
"I take that as disrespect," McClellan said. "But what can you do? They were playing well. They deserved to laugh."
Awww. Poor Jawann. Someone needs to clue him in and let him know that our Ben Ball warriors were not LOL at any of the Wildcats. They were LOL at themselves. They were having fun. And they were having a great time because they actually believe in playing defense, not just talking about it. From the same article on Yahoo describing the "big, bad Bruins":
"I take that as disrespect," McClellan said. "But what can you do? They were playing well. They deserved to laugh."
"We can definitely frustrate teams if they're not used to seeing pressure like that," guard Josh Shipp said. "(The Wildcats) weren't getting the open looks that they're used to getting. They got sped up a little bit. They were trying to make the home run plays once they got down."
For 20 straight years opponents averaged 70 or more points a contest against the Bruins, but that was before Howland led them to the national championship game in 2006. That season, teams scored an average 58.7 points against UCLA. The Bruins posted a similar number a year later (59.9 opponent points) en route to their second straight Final Four.
This season opponents are averaging 57.8 points against Howland's squad, which ranks third in the country.
"We recruit really good athletes, so you have to have quickness and length and speed," Howland said. "Our backcourt, with Collison and Westbrook ... I can't imagine there's a quicker backcourt in the country.
"We also want to recruit extremely competitive kids. These kids are like that. They're driven. Our players understand that defense is the concept you need to have success night in and night out. Some nights we're not going to be knocking down all of our jumpers, but our defense will still give us a chance."
And that's really it. If our program we really wanted to disrespect the Wildcat, then Coach Howland would have left all his starters in the game, and had our guys pound them by 40 pts. If our players had that kind of mindset, a Budinger would have been greeted by Mata-Real's elbow in the last few mins of the game. Then again CBud never made it anywhere near the paint as he kept getting out of the way. And if you think I am rubbing it in here is O'Neil's comments after Saturday night's game:
For 20 straight years opponents averaged 70 or more points a contest against the Bruins, but that was before Howland led them to the national championship game in 2006. That season, teams scored an average 58.7 points against UCLA. The Bruins posted a similar number a year later (59.9 opponent points) en route to their second straight Final Four.
This season opponents are averaging 57.8 points against Howland's squad, which ranks third in the country.
"We recruit really good athletes, so you have to have quickness and length and speed," Howland said. "Our backcourt, with Collison and Westbrook ... I can't imagine there's a quicker backcourt in the country.
"We also want to recruit extremely competitive kids. These kids are like that. They're driven. Our players understand that defense is the concept you need to have success night in and night out. Some nights we're not going to be knocking down all of our jumpers, but our defense will still give us a chance."
"I've said this before: Teams sometimes soften up (with success), especially young teams," O'Neill said. "We talked about that, and we will have to guard against that. Today, we played soft, timid, and downright scared for a lot of the night. That's not the thing we need to do."
Well I am not sure how much I buy the "young" excuse considering well you know our offense now runs through a freshman, and we don't have any seniors in our starting five. Oh well. That's Zona's problem.I don't think there is any need to talk trash about the Wildcats. I am sure they will get fired up when our boys get to Tuscon. We will deal with that game when time comes up. For now all we can do is enjoy our "young" team's maturing process as they grow and develop through yet another fun Ben Ball season. We will enjoy watching our warriors play defense while they are in action, not through pretty words in the MSM.
GO BRUINS.