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It’s Senior Night tonight at Pauley Pavilion as Thomas Welsh, GG Goloman, Alec Wulff and Ikenna Okwarabizie play their final home games for the UCLA Bruins. The four seniors will be honored along with student athletic trainer Kaviyon Sadrolashrafi, student video coordinator Joe Preston and student managers Sam Schmall and Nick Griffin in a pregame ceremony.
While it’s important to honor these seniors tonight, it’s more important that UCLA wins the game. They simply cannot afford to lose many games going forward and winning both games next weekend against Colorado and Utah on the road will be tough enough that the Bruins need to pick up a win at home tonight.
Compared to Oregon State, the Oregon Ducks are a much better basketball team. Of course, they are also a well-coached basketball team as we saw when the teams met in January and Dana Altman out-coached State Alford.
The Ducks will have the same starting five as they did in January and, like in January, the Ducks are still shooting well from the free throw line. Sure, their free throw percentage has dipped ever so slightly from 78.1% to 77.9%, but they are ranked eighth in the country at the line. So, UCLA needs to avoid sending Oregon to the line.
If UCLA can do that and play good defense, look for a Bruin win tonight. Without one or both of those, the Bruins might have some problems getting the W.
Go Bruins!