Vacation schedule promises no breaks for Bruins

  CHRIS BACKLEY Junior Dan Gadzuric dunks
the ball despite being double-teamed during UCLA’s home opener
against Cal State Northridge last month. Northridge upsets the
Bruins in one of the biggest shocks of the young basketball season.
Over winter break, the team has a tough schedule of games,
including the No. 14 North Carolina Tar Heels, who UCLA defeated
last season, and the perennial powerhouse Purdue Boilermakers.

By Chris Umpierre
Daily Bruin Staff A season that has already been difficult for the
UCLA men’s basketball team might get tougher over Christmas
vacation. The Bruins, after dropping three of their first five
games, will face three teams they could easily lose to: UC Irvine
(3-1), No. 14 North Carolina (4-2) and Purdue (2-2), over the
break. In addition, on the weekend before the first week of class
instruction, UCLA will open the Pac-10 conference season against
the Washington schools. UCLA head coach Steve Lavin, whose team has
already played No. 4 Kansas and Kentucky, appreciates the arduous
schedule. “As much as we want to win every game and go
undefeated, the team understands you’re going to get
beat,”he said. “It’s better to get beat early and
learn from it than to have a false sense of security or a
fool’s gold feeling about yourself because you are playing a
bunch of patsies. “Sure, maybe you’re 10-0 but you are
headed right into a buzzsaw come conference because you don’t
have the reference point of playing a tough team.” The
Bruins’ first opponent over the break, UC Irvine on Dec. 16,
might sound like a pushover. But when you consider the hard time
UCLA has already had with mid-major programs (see Cal State
Northridge and UC Santa Barbara) and the talent on this Anteater
team, you’ll think again. Irvine (3-1) has already defeated a
Pac-10 team in the early season, downing a pretty good Cal team
56-52 on Dec. 2 at home. It was the school’s first win over a
Pac-10 team since Irvine beat Oregon State in 1994. Look for UCLA
to try to get the ball down low to 6-foot-11 Dan Gadzuric and
6-foot-8 T.J. Cummings because the Anteaters are deeply undersized.
“When we see the inside game is working (we’ve) got to
keep going to it,” Cummings said. “When we see blood
(we’ve) got to keep attacking.” Next up will be the
heavily anticipated, nationally televised game against No. 14 North
Carolina in Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 23. It’s the Tar
Heels’ first trip to Westwood since they defeated UCLA 88-81
in 1989. They will come to UCLA looking for some revenge after
guard Ryan Bailey banked two free throws at the end of last
year’s game in Chapel Hill to seal a 71-68 Bruin victory.
North Carolina is led by the deadly inside-outside duo of sophomore
sensation Joseph Forte and senior center Brendan Haywood. Forte is
a preseason All-American and is averaging 18 points and six
rebounds per game. The much-maligned 7-foot Haywood finally looks
like he is realizing his potential. On Dec. 4, the Carolina center
registered the school’s first triple-double with 18 points,
14 rebounds and 10 blocks. First-year coach Matt Doherty coaches
the Tar Heels. Doherty led Notre Dame to a 22-15 record last season
and is excited about coaching at his alma mater. “We will
play hard, we will play smart, we will play together,” said
Doherty in a statement at the beginning of the season. “That
sounds familiar. You’ve heard that before. It works. Our team
will play as hard or harder than any team in the country. That I
will promise you. I can’t ask guys to run faster or jump
higher, but I can ask them to play hard, and they will play
hard.” Two days before the New Year, UCLA will travel to the
always hostile Mackey Arena to take on Lavin’s former mentor
Gene Keady and his Purdue Boilermakers. Purdue lacks graduated
forward Brian Cardinal, last season’s heart and soul, but
that didn’t seem to matter when they played Arizona earlier
in the year. The Boilermakers stunned then-No. 1 Arizona 72-69 in
Indiana. Forward Rodney Smith led Purdue with 20 points and 8
rebounds. “They played us at the wrong time,” Keady
told the Associated Press after the game. “We really believed
we could beat the No. 1 team. I could see it in their eyes.”
The Bruins better hope this is the right time to travel to West
Lafayette because a loss here and one against Carolina could
seriously hurt UCLA’s tournament hopes. UCLA will round out
the Christmas vacation with two games they should win, against
Washington (3-3) on Jan. 4 and Washington State (2-2) on Jan. 6 in
Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins will be attempting to get some revenge
from last season’s upset by Washington 63-62 in Seattle. The
Huskies lost Bruin-killer Deon Luton, who had 26 points in last
year’s win, to graduation. So far, 6-foot-8 Will Perkins has
picked up the scoring by averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds. The
last game before school restarts is against perennial league
doormat Washington State. UCLA leads the series 78-12 and should
have no trouble with the Cougars. Having started the season so
poorly, these five games are a key stretch for the Bruins. If they
hope to continue the streak of 12 consecutive NCAA tournament
appearances and 20-plus winning seasons, they will need to play
well over the winter vacation. Lavin is looking forward to the
amount of practice time he will have with his team. “That
will probably be the best stretch of quality practice time that we
will have all season,” he said. “There are 30 quality
practice days in there and that will be important for us as far as
working on our deficiencies and improving as a team.”

MEN’S BASKETBALL STARTERS, AS OF 12/8 SOURCE:
Sports Info Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior
Staff Web adaptation by MIKE OUYANG/Daily Bruin MEN’S
BASKETBALL SCHEDULE Date
Opponent Outcome/Time Nov. 1 Team
Concept (Exh.) W, 118-64 Nov. 9 Kansas @ New York L, 99-98 Nov. 10
Kentucky @ New York W, 97-92 Nov. 15 Cal All-Stars W, 81-78 Nov. 21
Cal State Northridge L, 78-74 Nov. 29 UC Santa Barbara W, 83-77
Dec. 2 GA Tech @ Anaheim L, 72-67 Dec. 9 Hawaii 5:30 p.m. Dec. 16
UC Irvine 7:30 p.m. Dec. 23 North Carolina 1 p.m. Dec. 30 @ Purdue
9 a.m. Jan. 4 Washington 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6 Washington State 3 p.m.
Jan. 11 USC 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13 Villanova 1 p.m. Jan. 18 @ Arizona
State 6:30 p.m. Jan. 20 @ Arizona 10:30 a.m. Jan. 25 Oregon State
7:30 p.m. Jan. 27 Oregon 5 p.m. Feb. 1 @ California 7:30 p.m. Feb.
3 @ Stanford 12 p.m. Feb. 8 @ USC 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10 @ DePaul 12:30
p.m. Feb. 15 Arizona 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 Arizona State 2 p.m. Feb. 22
@ Oregon 7 p.m. Feb. 24 @ Oregon State 3 p.m. March 1 California
7:30 p.m. March 3 Stanford 1 p.m. March 8 @ Washington State 7 p.m.
March 10 @ Washington 3 p.m. SOURCE: UCLA Sports Info (schedule is
tentative) Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN Web adaptation by MIKE
OUYANG/Daily Bruin