Men’s basketball to face a Colorado team missing its star player
Redshirt senior forward Travis Wear and the Bruins travel to Boulder, Colo., tonight to face their third ranked team of the season in No. 21 Colorado. UCLA has lost two games to ranked teams, Arizona and Duke.
By Andrew Erickson
Jan. 16, 2014 12:36 a.m.
Steve Alford had seen it before.
UCLA men’s basketball’s first-year coach tuned in to watch Sunday’s matchup between Colorado and Washington and looked on as Colorado junior guard Spencer Dinwiddie went to dribble in the first half, only to have his left knee buckle.
It was a body motion, equal parts unnatural and unfortunate, that Alford, having 20-plus years of coaching experience at the collegiate level, has regrettably had to witness firsthand.
“It didn’t look good when he went,” Alford said. “Not only is (Dinwiddie) a terrific player, but he’s a terrific person as well. That’s the part of sports where you absolutely cringe and you hate seeing that.”
A Monday MRI exam revealed Dinwiddie tore his left ACL, an injury that will keep him out for the remainder of the 2013-2014 season. When UCLA travels to Boulder this Thursday, the Buffs will be without their leader in minutes per game, points per game, assists per game, steals per game, free-throw percentage and three-point field goal percentage.
Still, Alford said the No. 25 Bruins (13-3, 2-1 Pac-12) will stay the course in trying to establish a fast tempo in high elevation, regardless of which guards in black and gold see more court time.
“Obviously, we have no idea what they do differently,” Alford said. “It won’t change our approach. It’s one of those deals when someone gets hurt, it’s next man in.”
With Dinwiddie sidelined on Sunday, No. 21 Colorado (14-3, 3-1) crumbled to a 71-54 loss to Washington, its first in Pac-12 play this season. Still, there are no automatic checkmarks in the conference’s mountain road trip, an idea the Bruins can grasp just by watching film of the same January trip last season.
UCLA returned home in early 2013 with back-to-back wins over Utah and Colorado, but barely, eking out a 2-0 slate by a combined seven points. In a three-point win over the Buffs last January, the Bruins were lifted by an unexpected performance from then-redshirt junior forward Travis Wear, who shot a dominant 11 for 17 from the field for a team-high 23 points.
“I remember we won, and I think the second half I had a pretty good half and I caught fire there,” Wear said.
After missing the first three games of the season while recovering from appendicitis, Wear has been working himself back to form. He is only averaging 5.9 points per game but has started the Bruins’ last seven games and logged key minutes. His mid-range jumper is continuing to build consistency, and, along with brother David Wear, he played a major role in controlling the damage of Arizona State center Jordan Bachynskito 14 points and 8 rebounds in Sunday’s 87-72 win.
“I thought Trav got back to doing some things that we need for him to do,” Alford said. “We need those five-year guys to lead … and I thought that was as big as anything in taking away that inside game that Arizona State’s been good at this year.”
It’s the one-year guys, freshman guards Zach LaVine and Bryce Alford, that will have to follow up over the next few days. The Bruins played an early December road game at Missouri and a pseudo-road game against Duke at Madison Square Garden almost two weeks later, but will soon experience two hostile gyms in succession for the first time all season.
“It’s going to be tough,” Bryce Alford said. “Obviously it’s the first trip for me and Zach … (but) we’re excited to get away and try to get some road wins.”
