Men’s basketball team opens Pac-12 tournament facing USC
Junior guard Bryce Alford and the rest of UCLA men’s basketball are looking forward to starting the Pac-12 tournament with a clean slate. (Hannah Ye/Assistant photo editor)
By Claire Fahy
March 9, 2016 3:29 p.m.
There’s a lot to be said about UCLA men’s basketball’s record as the Bruins open Pac-12 tournament play Wednesday in Las Vegas. UCLA strung together four losses in a row to close out the season and finished conference play below .500 for the first time in coach Steve Alford’s tenure with the Bruins.
None of that matters now, Alford said. His team is 0-0. All that counts is what happens in Vegas. Staring down a USC squad that has already handed his team two double-digit losses, Alford is hoping the Bruins can stay in Vegas for as long as possible.
“Forget about our seeding. We got the same record as everybody else in this tournament now,” Alford said. “It’s a new tournament, it’s not league play, let’s hit that refresh button and see what happens.”
UCLA (15-16, 6-12 Pac-12) enters the conference tournament as the 11th seed set to take on seventh-seeded USC (20-11, 9-9), with the winner of the Bruin-Trojan matchup to face No. 2 seed Utah in Thursday’s quarterfinals. Winning the Pac-12 tournament is probably the only remaining way the Bruins can make the NCAA Tournament.
“Our goal is to win four games in four days,” said junior guard Bryce Alford. “We’ve put the past in the past, obviously we’ve had some rough times, some ups and downs throughout the entire season but this team’s ready to go. We’re ready to get a clean slate.”
The first facet of play to refresh will have to be how UCLA performs on the defensive end. USC averaged 85 points against the Bruins this season, most recently handing them an 80-61 home court loss Feb. 4. So far, this year UCLA has been unable to limit athletic teams, and USC brings a large amount of athleticism to the floor, particularly in freshman forwards Chimezie Metu and Bennie Boatwright.
“When all of a sudden we play big, athletic teams that have skilled stretch fours and big, athletic guards, that’s a hard matchup for us,” Steve Alford said. “Those are reasons, they’re not excuses. We just haven’t developed defensively like our teams normally develop … To be honest with you, I think that’s why we’ve lost.”
Many of those defensive disappointments occurred against unlikely opponents. UCLA struggled in its season-opening loss to Monmouth, the first conference road trip of the season against the Washington schools, and in closing out the Stanford game in late February.
When it comes to bigger names, UCLA has usually risen to the occasion in one way or another. There were the much-talked-about upsets of Kentucky and Gonzaga, the buzzer-beating win over Arizona and a close two-point loss to Utah on Feb. 18. When the Bruins need to play well, they can – just not against the Trojans so far.
“We’ve handled challenges well, especially on big stages,” Bryce Alford said. “Hopefully we can remember the past two games (against USC), remember what that feels like and not let that happen again.”
With contributing reports from Derrek Li, Daily Bruin senior staff.
