Love shows off full-court shooting at Final Four practice

Fans were given their first taste of the Final Four weekend this afternoon, as the four teams remaining in what started as a field of 65 opened practices at the Alamodome.

UCLA started its practice by doing warm-up running and footwork drills up and down the court before working on full-court weaves.

Then came the moment all fans had been anticipating since seeing CBS footage of Kevin Love’s full-court shot during the broadcast of the UCLA-Xavier Elite Eight game.

“I’ve worked on that shot since I was about, you know, a freshman, doing it on the smaller court, my sophomore and junior year where I moved to a bigger court,” Love said. “Now I’m pretty consistent on hitting the rim or the backboard.”

Love finally made a full-court shot from the left side of the baseline after multiple tries. He kept going and said he was attempting to make two straight.

He didn’t make another and eventually moved on to shooting while sitting down at half-court, before finally being shut down by coach Ben Howland and the Bruins’ training staff.

Howland later talked about Love’s long-distance shots.

“You know, Kevin can really, really shoot the basketball,” he said jokingly and with a smile. “I’ve been working with him on that half-court and full-court shot all year, and it’s starting to play dividends. We’re really excited about that.”

After the shootaround, Darren Collison sat alongside Love at a press conference. A reporter asked Collison about his own half-court shooting.

“My full-court shot is coming along as well, too,” Collison said with a laugh.

But the jubilant open practices turned sour when the Kansas Jayhawks took the floor and began trying their own trick shots and flashy dunks.

As he was going up for a dunk, Jayhawk senior Rodrick Stewart landed and heard a pop in his knee and was helped off the court with his knee heavily isolated. The rest of the Kansas team quickly followed him off the court, cutting their practice time short of the scheduled 50 minutes.

Kansas coach Bill Self later announced that Stewart, who averaged 2.8 points in 11.6 minutes for the Jayhawks, had fractured his kneecap and will not play this weekend.

“He’ll have surgery when he gets back to Lawrence,” Self said. “So not a great start to our day. But he did that at the end when he slipped on a wet spot.”

Stewart attended USC before transferring to Kansas in December 2004. He is the twin brother of former Trojan Lodrick Stewart.

UCLA was fortunate neither Josh Shipp nor Russell Westbrook sustained similar injuries, as they were trying acrobatic dunks amid Love’s full-court barrage of rainbow shots.

PLEASE CHANGE THE SONG: When Love was asked whether the “One Shining Moment” video, which was shown at a banquet Thursday night, had an effect on him, he was quick to say it sent shivers down his spine.

Collison had a different take on the video.

“The video itself was cool,” Collison said. “But personally I’m kind of tired of the music. I’m not just trying to be mean. It’s just like, you know, you hear it so many times.”

Love began to sing the opening lines of the song, before a reporter proceeded to ask Collison what he thought the new theme music should be.

“A little Jay-Z,” he said with a smile.

Collison’s opinion of the music may change in a few days if he is able to help his team get a spot in the video after winning a national championship, which would be the 12th for the Bruins.

“You can hear the music all you want, but if you don’t win it, you’re not going to be a fan of it,” Collison said. “Maybe when we win it, I’m going to love that music. I’m going to play it a lot.”

LOVELY ROSE: When UCLA coach Ben Howland was asked about the comparison between Love and Memphis freshman Derrick Rose, he pointed to the expectations and hype surrounding them before they went to college.

Howland admired the ability of both players to handle the scrutiny of coming into college as two of the top five high school seniors a year ago.

“To be able to handle that all and still perform so well and lead their respective teams to Final Fours ““ I think they’ve both been obviously key drivers behind both teams ““ has been really special.”

DRAFT ADVICE?: Prior to the shootaround, a reporter asked Howland what he thought about the idea that, because of the perceived strength of this year’s NBA draft class, it might be advantageous for certain players to stay in school another year and improve their draft stock by entering the draft next year when the class is expected to be weaker.

“I think that you’re correct in that there’s a little more room to move up in next year’s draft. … Because you have the exceptional freshmen in this year’s class, it takes away from a couple guys that would maybe be juniors or seniors.”

When asked if he might share this opinion with any Bruins who might be considering the NBA this offseason, Howland quickly abandoned the subject.

“I’m not thinking about that,” he said.