Court Visions: Basketball manages win over Arizona in impressive fashion

TUCSON, Ariz. — No practice drill can ready a team for what the Bruins went through the last few days, and there is no way to measure how much adversity UCLA was dealt before beating Arizona on its home floor.

Bruins coach Ben Howland put it thusly on Thursday night: “Until you get drilled, you don’t learn.”

Like the mountains that dot the desert beside the Interstate 10 on the drive to this isolated city, adversity comes and goes, and you never know how steep the climb will be when you hit it.

It struck the Bruins early in the year, after they lost three out of five games to drop to a 5-3 record. It disappeared when UCLA ran off 10 straight wins. It came back on Saturday in Pauley Pavilion after Oregon handed UCLA its first loss in weeks. It could have stopped then, but didn’t.

With every blow the Bruins were dealt this week before upsetting the No. 6 Wildcats, 84-73, they dodged disaster, either by luck or with savvy.

Like with the flu bug that bit this team during the few days of preparation leading up to this game. When Jordan Adams and Kyle Anderson were hunched over trash cans vomiting instead of practicing on Tuesday, they didn’t know how long it would take to overcome. Luckily for them, it took just 24 hours of rest.

Midgame, the Bruins were handed even worse news with consequences that reached even farther: Travis Wear, the team’s best post presence, had concussion-symptoms after playing just 11 minutes and wouldn’t return.

Wear averages 30 minutes per game, so the Bruins needed to pick up about one-half’s worth of minutes among the remaining seven.

It just so happened that Tony Parker, who usually steps on the floor less than Howland during games, seized his moment.

The biggest but least-used Bruin played seven minutes in the second half, more than he had in any game over the last month. His numbers in that stretch: six points and a defensive rebound, including a fadeaway basket plus a free throw that put UCLA up eight.

That had nothing to do with luck, just preparation from the only freshman who hadn’t had his chance to shine yet.

The Bruins were down to seven players, then six when Adams, already ill earlier in the week, cramped up.

Easiest fix yet.

“I drank like four Gatorades,” Adams said of his trip to the locker room. “I almost threw it back up.”

Plenty of teams had come to McKale Center, looked good, then collapsed against the strength of Arizona and its loud crowd. The Wildcats and their fans donned white in unison for the game against UCLA, a rivalry locals take very seriously. The Bruins could have been next.

On Thursday, there was no amount of whiteout that could have covered up the mistakes Arizona was forced into by UCLA.

That led to the Bruins getting out and running with the basketball like they want to. They were as frantic as a team trailing and needing to put up points. Only, they jumped out to a 21-5 lead, kept it, and never let the game get too close.

“We played so well as a team,” said Shabazz Muhammad, deflecting sole credit after his 23-point performance. “Everybody played well and we all contributed bits and pieces of our game.”

The Bruins got contributions from every scholarship player on the roster for the first time all season. They were all smiling as they boarded the bus to Tempe, hardly an indication of what they went through before the biggest win in UCLA’s recent history.

As UCLA has done all season, it responded to a loss with a win and didn’t let a losing slide start. What happened in between only made it more impressive.

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