Thursday, February 5, 1998
Season half over, still room for improvement
MEN’S BASKETBALL: The heat is on as Bruins get better and
better
By Mark Shapiro
Daily Bruin Staff
They’ve reached the halfway point, and though the UCLA men’s
basketball team is not in its accustomed position atop the Pac-10
Conference, it is beginning to, quite literally, pick up speed.
The sixth-ranked Bruins (17-3 overall, 7-2Pac-10), with a 7-2
record in conference play, find themselves in third place, trailing
Stanford by virtue of their earlier loss to the Cardinal, and two
games behind the University of Arizona, which is a perfect 9-0 in
the Pac-10.
This is unfamiliar ground for UCLA, which has won the last three
conference titles, but after some early season struggles, the high
octane Bruins have begun to shift into gear.
Since their loss to Stanford five games ago, the Bruins have
first set, and then equalled a school record of 25 assists in a
game. They have also consistently been able to out-rebound the
opposition, and have maintained a shooting percentage of over 50
percent.
"We still have lots of deficiencies, but we’re obviously doing
some good things, or we wouldn’t be 17-3 and ranked sixth in the
nation," UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said.
Now, after a four game homestand, UCLA is taking its show back
on the road for tonight’s game against Oregon. The Ducks, under the
helm of first year head coach Ernie Kent, have long given the
Bruins fits and have proven themselves a force to be reckoned with.
Last year at the raucous McArthur Court, Oregon stretched UCLA to
overtime last year and defeated the Bruins 87-85.
The Bruins, however, are coming off of one of their finest
performances of the year last Saturday. The 105-94 dismantling of
the Washington Huskies, in which the Bruins led by 20 or more
points for most of the game, was one of the few times this season
UCLA has maintained a consistent level of play for more than a
single half.
"The first 30 minutes was the best sustained 30 minutes we’ve
played," Lavin said. "We want to make progress in the things we’ve
been making progress in, but now we want to do it for forty
minutes, like every team in the country. We’ve shown it for 20
minutes, we’ve shown it for thirty minutes.
"We’d like to get to the point where we play consistent
basketball for forty minutes."
MARY CIECEK
Though his eyes are closed, J.R. Henderson finds a way to the
hole.