UCLA’s ordinary play causes real win

  MIKE CHIEN Senior forward Matt Barnes
elevates over two Cal defenders on Saturday. UCLA
64 Cal 57

By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

For once there was no drama, nothing to talk or write about.

The UCLA men’s basketball team won. Period.

Little else could be said of the No. 13 Bruins’ contest
against Cal Saturday evening at Pauley Pavilion, which they won
64-57.

UCLA head coach Steve Lavin ““ so used to seeing his
undisciplined team fall into a pit of some sort before the end of
almost every contest ““ was spared any unwanted plot
twists as his team played unspectacularly but steadily throughout
the game’s 40 minutes.

Members of the local print press must have been craning their
necks after this one, trying to think of storylines.

The Bruins (14-5, 6-3 Pac-10) entered the contest having lost
consecutive games to Arizona and Stanford, and were about to hit
the road to visit the Oregon schools. But a loss wouldn’t
necessarily have crippled their chances of making the NCAA
Tournament. The season, after all, was still young.

“We had lost two in a row, but we weren’t really
against the wall,” senior forward Matt Barnes said.

So what else was there to write about?

Jason Kapono played well, leading his team with a game-high 17
points, but wasn’t particularly dominating. At no point was
Kapono in a zone.

A sizeable crowd of 12,275 showed up to Pauley, but it too, did
nothing noteworthy. Beating Cal (14-4, 5-3) in game
locally-televised by Fox Sports West wasn’t worth rushing the
court over.

UCLA point guard Cedric Bozeman and Cal center Jamal
Sampson, teammates at Santa Ana Mater Dei High School last year,
faced each other for the first time in a collegiate competition,
but neither one of them took over the game at any juncture.

Bruin center Dan Gadzuric managed to stay out of foul trouble, a
rare occurrence indeed, but it wasn’t as if he played like
Shaquille O’Neal ““ except perhaps when he was on
the free-throw line where he made only three of eight shots.

The game, in short, made for forgettable print unless one were
to take one of the facets of the contest mentioned above and
inaccurately portray it as being more important than it really
was.

Nor did post-game interviews produce anything exciting.

Lavin: “I’m really pleased for our kids to bounce
back after two disappointing losses.”

Senior guard Billy Knight: “It was good to get a win. It
makes a big difference before going on the road. We haven’t
lost three in a row in awhile.”

Not exactly Thomas Jefferson material.

Yet, the absence of a dramatic or traumatic event ““
however inconvenient it was for the media ““ was a mark
of significant progress for the Bruins. The team showed they
could go about their usual business, do nothing out of the ordinary
and beat a team they were supposed to beat.

Defensively, UCLA was solid. Gadzuric, who didn’t record a
single foul in the first half, was able to log 34 minutes in the
contest and provide an inside presence. Along the perimeter, the
Bruins’ long-armed guards forced the Bears to alter their
shots. Cal hit only 5-of-25 three-point field goal attempts
and just 37 percent overall from the field.

Bear forward Joe Shipp scored 15 points but was only 5-of-13
from the field.

“We wanted to take away the paint first,” Lavin
said. “When you do a better job of playing contained defense,
you can do a better job of challenging shooters.”

On offense, UCLA struggled some, turning the ball over 15 times,
but only five of those came in the second half. Although the
contest was a low-scoring affair, three players other than Kapono
scored more than 10 points ““ Knight (16), Gadzuric (13)
and Barnes (11).

The Bruins did nothing great, but nothing poorly. They played,
for once, like a good team.