UCLA men’s basketball begins road series at Oregon
Then-freshman guard/forward Kyle Anderson and the Bruins lost to the Oregon Ducks in the Pac-12 title game last season. UCLA travels north Thursday for a rematch of last year’s 78-69 loss.
By Andrew Erickson
Jan. 30, 2014 4:18 a.m.
Sitting at the 20-game mark with a 16-4 record, UCLA men’s basketball has little to cringe about.
The least-talented team they’ve lost to – Utah – is a respectable 14-6 and, with Sunday night’s win over Cal, the Bruins have a share of the No. 2 spot in the Pac-12. In other words, it’s probably what is expected of a team whose most devastating injury bug has been of the flu variety.
“We were battling some sickness. We probably had four guys on the roster go through some cold or sickness and we had a day off yesterday,” said coach Steve Alford Tuesday. “Hopefully we’re a little more healthy going into the road trip. We’ve weathered that storm and we’ve stayed healthy to date.”
Luckily for Alford and the Bruins, Pac-12 gyms have plenty of wood to go around. The troubling part for UCLA, however, is the hardwood won’t be its own in the foreseeable future. Including Thursday night’s showdown at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena, the Bruins will play five of their next seven games on the road.
In past weeks, there’s been time for UCLA to re-establish its bearings. An emotional loss to No. 1 Arizona on Jan. 9 was negated with a 15-point home drubbing of Arizona State three days later. The disappointing Jan. 18 road slipup to Utah was reversed the following Thursday with a dismantling of Stanford at Pauley Pavilion.
Without the option of returning home over the next three games, losses can snowball. A road-weary Oregon squad, despite plenty of early-season success, stumbles into Thursday’s game with a 2-5 conference record as living, breathing proof. In bold lettering, Matthew Knight Arena’s court reads “Deep in the Woods,” and in order for the Bruins not to get lost there, they’ll need to play with an offensive precision and readiness that was absent in the mountains two weeks ago.
“This is our test to show the improvements we made after those road trip games where we’ve lost and we’ve come back with our heads hung. This is our chance to regroup,” said sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson, who averages 15.5 points and nine rebounds per game heading into Thursday’s contest. “Everybody needs to keep their minds on winning, which we’ve been doing, and we’ll handle business.”
So far, both teams have been in the business of playing fast. The Ducks set up shop Thursday night as the Pac-12’s No. 1 scoring offense with 85.9 points per game, while the Bruins (16-4, 5-2 Pac-12) sit at No. 2 with an average of 84.3 points per game.
All season, high-octane offensive affairs have reflected well on UCLA’s record. The Bruins have built runs and turned opponents over to a 13-0 record when scoring 76 points or more.
“They’re a tough, fast team just like we are. We know our offense has to be there and we have to lock up on defense,” said freshman guard Zach LaVine. “They have a lot of explosive players and we have to key in on them and just focus on … doing what we do and knocking down shots.”
Despite more than 31 points per game combined from junior guard Joseph Young and Mike Moser, a senior forward who spent his freshman season at UCLA, the Ducks (14-5, 2-5) have struggled to do just that over the last seven games.
Though they’ll hope to establish an offensive rhythm early Thursday, the Bruins’ ability to score at will on the road this season has likewise been somewhere lost in the woods.
