Friday, January 30, 1998
Huskies, Bruins in dogfight for third
M. BASKETBALL: Height of Washington team will be factor in
battle at UCLA
By Emmanuelle Ejercito
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The No. 8 UCLA men’s basketball team closes out the first half
of the conference season against Washington, Saturday at Pauley
Pavilion.
The Bruins (record goes here) and the Huskies are tied for third
place in the Pac-10. The winner of this weekend’s game will go into
the second half of league play owning third place outright trailing
Arizona and Stanford.
Washington’s starting line-up has two players over seven feet
tall. Junior center Todd MacCulloch was last year’s NCAA leader in
field goal percentage (67.6 percent). This year the seven-footer
ranks first in the conference in shooting with a 65.8 percent clip.
MacCulloch leads the Huskies (record goes here) in points (18.4)
and rebounds (9.4).
7-foot-1-inch power forward Patrick Femerling is the other
Washington giant. The junior averages 6.8 points and 7.2
boards.
Washington matched up against Stanford last week and almost
handed the Cardinal its first loss of the season. The Huskies had a
one-point lead before Stanford’s Kris Weems hit a three-pointer at
the buzzer to give his team the 74-72 victory.
"Washington is Washington, they are really good," UCLA head
coach Steve Lavin said. "They’re big and other than Stanford,
probably the biggest team in the league. They’ll be a handful
especially with all of our deficiencies."
However, UCLA’s frontcourt has done well against big size this
season. J.R Henderson and Jelani McCoy kept 7-1 Cardinal Tim Young
and his teammates in check and forced Stanford to defeat the Bruins
from the perimeter.
"I always look forward to playing big people," McCoy said. "We
should be fine."
Washington hasn’t won at Pauley Pavilion since 1987. The Bruins
swept the series last year but had to come from behind in Seattle
to take the 87-85 victory that clinched their third-straight Pac-10
crown.