Friday, January 15, 1999
UCLA needs to stop Stanford in its tracks
MHOOPS: Bruins must overcome Cardinal’s size to contest for
Pac-10 title
By Brent Boyd
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
After derailing California in Pauley Pavilion Thursday night,
the Bruins will be facing a much more difficult task when Stanford
makes a pit stop here on Saturday.
And this train from Palo Alto is not a mere locomotive.
"Stanford is a runaway freight train that can run over anybody
in the country," UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said.
But this train must be stopped if the Bruins are to have any
hope of winning the Pac-10 title.
With a win, UCLA (12-3, 4-1 Pac-10) would take over sole
possession of first place.
But a loss here would be deadly to the Bruins’ championship
hopes. It would fall two games behind Stanford (14-2, 4-0 Pac-10)
with road trips to the Bay Area and Arizona still remaining.
"You’ve got to protect your homecourt, because it’s so hard to
win on the road in conference," Lavin said, no doubt remembering
last week’s loss at Oregon State and a narrow victory over
Oregon.
But upsetting the fourth-ranked Cardinal is one task that is
easier to discuss than to actually accomplish.
Stanford (14-2, 4-0 Pac-10) comes to Westwood riding a ten-game
winning streak – including wins over Temple, California and a 72-55
victory over Southern California on Thursday.
The Cardinal has blown out Oregon and Oregon State – teams that
UCLA was fortunate to split with.
Stanford has won its four conference games by an average of 16
points, Cal being the only single-digit victory.
"Obviously Stanford is the one team that looks like they can run
the table," Lavin said. "They have everything that coaches in the
league like to call an arsenal."
Stanford will give the Bruins the same problems that California
was expected to Thursday – a serious height and experience
advantage.
While UCLA starts only freshmen and sophomores, there is only
one player in the Stanford starting lineup that isn’t a senior –
junior forward Mark Madsen – and he’s the oldest player on the
team, due to a two-year mission.
The height advantage has not gone away.
"It’ll be just another contest where it’s their age versus our
youth," Lavin said.
The frontcourt is comprised of forwards Madsen at 6 feet 9
inches and 6-foot-7-inch Peter Sauer and 7-foot-2-inch center Tim
Young.
Stanford is exactly the type of team UCLA could struggle against
– one that is extremely patient and fundamentally sound.
Stanford is eighth in the league in scoring (73.1 points per
game) but fourth in the entire nation in scoring defense (55.2
ppg)
In addition, they force teams into difficult shots – opponents
have a .369 field goal shooting percentage. USC shot less than 30
percent against them Thursday. USC was forced to shoot 20
three-pointers – a bad sign for a Bruin team that has showed
impatience and a knack of missing long-range shots.
To make matters worse, Stanford doesn’t allow second-chance
shots – an area of the game UCLA excels in. The Cardinal lead the
Pac-10 in rebounding defense.
"They are well-coached by one of the great tacticians of
basketball," Lavin said. "They are a great, fundamentally-sound
team."
A fundamentally-sound runaway train – and the Bruins are
standing right on the tracks.
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