Men’s basketball to play defensive-minded Abilene Christian in Round of 32

In most years, two tournament wins would get you to the Sweet 16.

The Bruins will have to pull out a third victory of the weekend in order to do so this season.

Fresh off wins in the First Four and Round of 64, No. 11 seed UCLA men’s basketball (19-9, 13-6 Pac-12) will take on No. 14 seed Abilene Christian (24-4, 13-2 Southland) on Monday with a spot in the East Regional Semifinal on the line. It will be the Bruins’ third game in five days, with the first going to overtime, and they were the only play-in team that made it to the second round.

Junior guard Jules Bernard – who scored 11 and 16 points in UCLA’s two games – said Sunday morning his coaching staff is putting in extra work to prepare them for the unusual turnaround in Indiana.

“I feel like our coaches are doing a great job,” Bernard said. “I’m sure some of them are going overtime and losing a little bit of sleep watching films, especially for teams that we’re not as familiar with.”

The Bruins certainly aren’t familiar with the Wildcats – they’ve never played each other, which isn’t all too surprising considering Abilene Christian only joined Division I in 2013. They’ve only played six high major teams in the past five seasons, losing each time, but they put their defensive prowess on display Saturday night by forcing 23 turnovers in a last-second upset victory over No. 3 seed Texas.

Bernard said the team huddled around a TV in the locker room to watch the end of that game once they finished up their postgame spiel, and he immediately realized how the Wildcats’ defense forces its opponents to rush.

Abilene Christian forces 20.4 turnovers per game and boasts the best defensive rating in the nation with 83.3 points allowed per 100 possessions.

Coach Mick Cronin said the only team he’s ever seen that plays a similar style of basketball was the University of Alabama at Birmingham back in 2004, when the No. 9-seeded Blazers made a run of their own to the Sweet 16.

“They’re impossible to simulate,” Cronin said. “I mean, I’m going to try. Film is going to be extremely important, but the way they play, I’m sure our guys have not seen.”

A slew of second-half turnovers led to losses against Oregon and Colorado toward the end of the regular season, but UCLA was plus-3 and plus-7 in the turnover battle in its two tournament wins so far. Cronin said anything fewer than 15 turnovers is a win against Abilene Christian – for reference, the Bruins are 4-5 when they turn it over more than 12 times.

The Wildcats start three guards 6-feet or shorter, but Cronin said the fact they averaged a combined 5.0 steals per game essentially wipes out any height advantage the Bruins will have in the backcourt.

“A size advantage in this game is completely irrelevant because they turn the game into a game of upped speed and disruption,” Cronin said. “The other thing is, they eliminate your size advantage on the backboard with their hustle, their commitment to blocking out, so they’re as good defensively.”

Outside of getting ready for a unique opponent, Cronin said what worries him the most is his players’ mental fatigue after so many high-stakes games over the past few weeks.

One part of controlling that, Cronin said, was trying to keep his team calm after a win instead of letting them go all-out on a celebration.

“I’m more concerned with our emotional gas tank,” Cronin said. “I told the guys and the coaches when they were headed for the locker room, ‘Hey, keep it down.’ You want the kids to have fun, but you don’t want them to let all their adrenaline and emotion out, so it’s getting their emotional gas tank back to where it’s full is my biggest concern.”

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any celebration, however. Senior guard Chris Smith, who is out with a torn ACL, earned the honor of slapping the UCLA sticker onto the bracket in the team’s hotel as his teammates cheered him on.

Smith did the same after the Michigan State win, and he has a chance to do so at least one more time this weekend.

Tipoff is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. on Monday.