Men’s basketball set to push tempo against weak transition defense

This post was updated Feb. 23 at 5:40 p.m.

If you – like most people – enjoy watching the Bruins’ offense, you may want to save your blinking for the commercial breaks during No. 5 UCLA men’s basketball’s (24-3, 11-3 Pac-12) Thursday night game at Arizona State (13-15, 6-9).

With freshman guard Lonzo Ball always trying to push the pace, the Bruins almost always play at a fast tempo, taking more shots in the first 10 seconds of possessions than any major conference team besides Creighton.

If UCLA’s first meeting with Arizona State – a 102-80 home win on Jan. 19 – is any indication, the Bruins will play even faster than usual Thursday night.

In that January matchup, the Bruins erupted for a triple-digit performance by running wild against the Sun Devils’ shoddy transition defense, which ranks last among major conference teams in not just efficiency but also in the volume of transition opportunities allowed.

UCLA took a whopping 40 percent of their shots in transition and averaged just 12 seconds per possession. En route to a team-leading 33 points, senior guard Isaac Hamilton connected on four of the Bruins’ eight transition 3’s.

Of course, that win came right before UCLA’s two-game losing streak to Arizona and USC, back when the Bruins looked like they might be able to simply outscore opponent after opponent.

Inspired by that two-game blip to raise the defensive intensity, UCLA is a different team now, having posted its three best defensive performances of conference play over the past five games.

“Early in the season, we were winning by outscoring our opponents, and we got in a groove of that,” said senior guard Bryce Alford. “That two-game losing streak really hit us in the face. Arizona coming in here and scoring 96 kind of showed us, hey, we need to work on our defense.”

The better defense, in turn, has helped buoy the fast break game even more.

“We’re so good in transition, but it’s hard to run in transition if you’re taking the ball out of bounds,” said coach Steve Alford. “We’ve been able to show them on film what we look like when we get stops – because when we get stops, wow, this team is at a whole ‘nother level.”

The recent defensive improvement will be tested Thursday, with the Sun Devils boasting an offense far stronger than their defense.

Arizona State’s attack, which ranks 55th in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency according to kenpom.com, is predicated on the 3-point shot, with five different Sun Devils shooting the 3-ball at 36 percent or higher.

“They’re a free-flowing offense with a lot of guys that can score, a lot of guys that can do good things for them,” said junior center Thomas Welsh. “If they get going, they can be an extremely dangerous team.”

Arizona State’s leading scorer and most dangerous offensive option, senior guard Torian Graham, knocks down over three triples a game while shooting 38.4 percent from behind the arc.

Graham gets fewer pick-and-roll looks than fellow guards Tra Holder and Shannon Evans, but he’s tremendously effective, notching an excellent 1.07 points per possession when he receives an on-ball screen. The key to defending his pick-and-roll looks is forcing the ball out of his hands. His passes out of the pick-and-roll are far less efficient, and Graham records just 1.2 assists per game.

Bad Bench?

The Sun Devils lean heavily on their starting unit, with all five starters playing over 75 percent of the time.

No team uses their bench less in the entire nation, and it’s not even close. Arizona State gets 16.7 percent of its minutes from the bench; the next-lowest number in the nation is Nevada’s mark of 18.6 percent.