Going for .500: UC Davis Aggies @ UCLA Game Thread

Here we go again. UCLA takes on another supposedly outmatched opponent in the 1-8 UC Davis Aggies at the Honda Center. 10 games into the season, the Bruins will also have an opportunity to sniff .500 ball for the first time this season. As disturbing as that fact may be for a team near the end of the first third of the season, it's really not as disturbing or scary that we're still talking about wanting to see this team do some basic things correctly.

At least with the team improving marginally on defense, applying some zone defense, and playing some really bad teams, UCLA's D isn't the complete trainwreck style embarrassment it used to be, at least until it's time to get the rebound and end the possession. As DCBruins mentioned in our preview, we're especially thin now at the PF spot, but against a team like UC Davis, we will still expect to see solid improvement in our defensive rebounding.

Three weeks ago, I posted some of our abysmal rankings following our loss to Michigan in the Maui Invitational. Despite playing a relatively soft schedule since then, our numbers have gotten worse. Time is running out for this team to start putting together solid and consistent performances to carry them through the conference slate. That gives this game a very odd significance. If it doesn't happen this afternoon against a 1 win team at "home", can we ever really expect it to happen?

Tipoff is 12 PM PST and will be on Prime Ticket.