UCLA Basketball News Roundup: Bruins’ Statement in Utah — “The End is Near”

This morning’s news roundup is going to be shorter than most. That’s because there just aren’t as many postgame quotes as there usually are following a typical Bruin game, which pretty much explains where this year’s team is after a disasterous final road trip of the season that left the team in seventh place in the Pac-12 when they could have finished as high as third, and, frankly, I don’t want to spend a lot of time re-hashing yesterday’s loss to the Utah Utes.

Ben Bolch of the LA Times opens his article by pretty much summing up the state of things at this point:

UCLA knew before tip-off that it would be without its top big man because of a suspension and had no chance for a first-round bye in the Pac-12 Conference tournament based on results earlier in the day.

Somehow, things got worse.

Things got worse, indeed. But, despite that, David Singleton still managed to have a rather positive attitude after the game. Bolch quotes Singleton:

“Our spirits aren’t broken or anything like that,” said UCLA guard David Singleton, whose 13 points off the bench weren’t nearly enough to help the Bruins overcome a 27-point deficit in the first half. “We’re moving on to the next game just like we always do.”

Meanwhile, Bolch quotes Jalen Hill discussing Utah’s first half barrage that left the Bruins trailing by 27 points:

“We just couldn’t find a stop to it,” said UCLA forward Jalen Hill, who had 12 points and 13 rebounds in Brown’s absence. “You can’t just give up a 20-point lead and expect to come back really easy.”

It sounds like Hill listened to UCLA’s interim coach Murry Bartow talk about the result of the game. In a recap of the game from the Associated Press on ESPN.com, Bartow is quoted as saying:

“I wish we had more than nine conference wins, but I’m proud of the nine we’ve got,” interim coach Murray Bartow said. “They battled. We just got way too far down on the road. When you’re 20 down, it’s hard to come back.”

Today’s last word comes from Bartow as quoted by Bolch:

“I’ll just let the statement that we made speak for itself and we’ll re-evaluate things when we get back to L.A.,” Bartow said.

Unfortunately, the statement that was made yesterday is that the team has been poorly coached all year by both Alford and Bartow. The statement is that Bartow, who was brought in by Alford to be the “defensive specialist” didn’t have a clue on how to stop the barrage of three’s that the Utes launched upon the Bruins. The statement is that the season is almost over.

And, now, as a result of this week’s two losses, it could be over as early as Wednesday night when the seventh-seeded UCLA Bruins play the tenth-seeded Stanford Cardinal in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament at 7 pm at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

The end can’t come soon enough, if only to turn another calendar page and bring Bruin fans that much closer to the hiring of a new head coach for Bruins basketball.

What statement do you think the team made? Hammer away in the comments below.


Go Bruins.