UCLA v. Arizona

This was supposed to be "it", THE GAME OF THE YEAR. UCLA even has "the" lineup back. Jelani, Kris, Toby, J.R., and they've got this great freshman point guard, the answer to every Bruin's prayers, Baron Davis, who's so good, everyone says, that he's just the best point guard in America, he'll jump to the NBA even before he finishes one year of college, and the Bruins are now the best team in the country, bar none. Geez, while we think Baron is one of the best point guards we've seen, and his credentials from his prep days are about a mile long (check this Baron Davis bio out from the LA Times site) even after the first exhibition game against a bunch of Lithuanians, people are telling us that there just isn't a point guard in American who's better than Davis.

Well, you know what? Baron is good. He may even be great, and on occasion shows flashes of brilliance, a sign of things to come. But against Mike Bibby and Miles Simon, he demonstrated last night that he's got a lot of maturing to do.

Baron ended up fouling out, with only 5 points at a critical juncture in the game for UCLA. And so did Toby Bailey. And so did J.R. Henderson.

One thing that Baron has got to learn is that sometimes the other team is just going to score; it's the nature of the game. Not every possession down the floor is a matter of life and death, and often, defensive patience is better than defensive insanity. If you watched the game, you just knew that Baron was going to foul out. He picked up his fourth with 13:25 left, when UCLA desperately needed him in the game, at a time when they were trailing by only four points. He didn't return until eight minutes remained, and in the intervening time, the Bruins were down by 3 more and trailed by seven, but had trailed by as many as 12 while Baron warmed his butt on the bench. Of course, he continued playing his relentless and seemingly reckless brand of defense, and of course, he fouled out with 3:26 left and the Bruins trailing, 72-65. During the time he was in, Arizona went right after him, with Bibby just taking the ball to him every chance he had, using his quick first step to the hoop to draw Davis in to pick up the fouls.

As Robyn Norwood wrote in the Times this morning, "Bibby isn't good enough defensively to guard Davis one-on-one all night, but he was smart enough to take him out of the game by driving on him."

And his last foul was just so unnecessary. There were the Bruins, down by 7, and desparately needing Davis in the game. And with an easy inbounds after a made basket by UCLA, with nobody playing a press, Davis decides to go after Terry who's bringing the ball upcourt, just as soon as he brings the ball in. There's Baron, challenging, in his face, left arm down, right arm waving, running along side and then boom, Terry draws him in, crosses over, and there's Baron's arm, suddenly across the offensive player. . . foul. Adios, goodnight. Live by the youth, die by the youth. But then what was Lavin telling him? How about "back off son, you've already got four fouls, and now we need you." Oh well.

UCLA played just a wonderful first half, and actually led by three at the half. But then they played just a terrible second half, losing their composure, forcing shots, comitting several (well, more than several) turnovers, passing terribly, and fouling Arizona constantly, which is not a very smart thing to do against a team which shoots about 90% from the line with great consistency. The result was that Toby fouled out, J.R. Henderson fouled out, and Baron Davis fouled out.

For Arizona, this was just a great shooting exhibition. Michael Dickerson scored seven of his 24 points in a second-half run. Miles Simon added 27 points and Mike Bibby had 20. Arizona is now on quite a run, and they are 10-3, on the year after playing some really quality opponents, and they are 2-3 against ranked teams this season. The Wildcats are 10-2 when scoring over 80 points. For those interested in a little history, they beat UCLA for just the second time in the last seven meetings.

UCLA did have it's bright moments. Kris Johnson scored 28 points and Toby Bailey had 17 points, which probably could have been 30 if Toby would just for once (c'mon Toby, this is your last season, do it for all of us just this once) show some patience instead of forcing the shot. In the last half of the second period, every time Toby got the ball, he'd take a little jab step, try a head fake, and then head for the hoop. After about two times of these head fakies, the defenders had him figured out, and we don't remember him scoring in the last for five or six minutes he was in, at least not from a drive in the lane.

J.R. Henderson had just a horrible game, and had only three points. He had been averaging 20.6 points and 9.4 rebounds before this game, playing "out of position" while Jelani McCoy was suspended. And while McCoy was impressive, it looks like Henderson and Watson (and even Davis, although his scoring woes seemed unrelated) are going to have trouble adjusting. But then this was only the first Pac-10 game of the season for the Bruins. Henderson went just 1-of-6 from the field and committed five turnovers in the game.

Kris scored 17 of his points in the first, and even though he doesn't play with half the intensity of Baron Davis, demonstrated that he's a whole lot more mature. UCLA shot 17-of-29 from the field in the first half, but the Wildcats stayed close by making 11-of-13 from the foul line and hitting five three-pointers.

As George Raveling (or is it Raving. . why is he beginning to sound more and more like Vitale with each broadcast) said, "you just can't continue to foul a team like Arizona and expect to win. They'll kill you at the line" And the Wildcats did just that, managing a whopping 34-7 edge in free throws made, attempting 43 foul shots to UCLA's 15. Arizona shot 40 percent (22-of-55) from the field, including 9-of-19 from three-point range. In contrast, UCLA shot just 38 percent (13-of-36) of its shots in the second half. Davis, Henderson, Bailey and Johnson all fouled out, as we said, but if you add up their fouls, you begin to see how it lost the game for them: They had 29 fouls overall, and quite a few of those were shooting fouls for Arizona.

And speaking of Raveling, one of the best things about the television broadcast was early in the fourth quarter when the microphones of Raveling and his co-commentator went out. The sound was dead, and it was wonderful, because even though there was no talking, you could still hear the crowd. Sort of like being at the game. And it beats just turning down the volume. A note to the guys over at Fox: Give it a try. Go ahead. No announcing. Just great graphics and the game. That would be enough.

So, to sum up the Bruin experience in Arizona, as Jelani McCoy, ever the laid-back one, said after the game. "Hey, it's only the first game of the Pac-10 season. It's not life and death."

UCLA (75)
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Watson          34   2-5   1-2   0-4  6  2    6
Johnson         33 11-18   2-2   0-2  1  5   28
Henderson       31   1-6   1-2   2-8  2  5    3
Davis           31   1-6   3-4   1-2  5  5    5
Bailey          33  7-16   0-0   0-1  2  5   17
Knight           1   0-1   0-0   1-1  0  0    0
Reed             1   0-0   0-0   0-0  0  0    0
Loyd             7   0-1   0-0   0-0  0  3    0
Mccoy           29  8-12   0-5  6-13  2  4   16
_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 30-65  7-15 10-31 18 29   75
_______________________________________________

Percentages: FG-.462, FT-.467. 3-Point Goals: 8-20, .400
(Watson 1-3, Johnson 4-6, Davis 0-2, Bailey 3-8, Loyd 0-1).
Team rebounds: 3. Blocked shots: 2 (Bailey, Mccoy).
Turnovers: 18 (Bailey 6, Henderson 5, Davis 2, Johnson 2,
Mccoy 2, Watson). Steals: 9 (Davis 2, Johnson 2, Mccoy 2,
Bailey, Henderson, Watson).

ARIZONA (87)
                      fg    ft    rb
               min   m-a   m-a   o-t  a pf   tp
Davison         39   0-5   3-4   4-9  0  0    3
Dickerson       30  8-15  6-10   3-9  0  3   24
Bramlett        21   1-5   3-4   2-8  0  4    5
Simon           38  8-17   8-8   0-4  2  0   27
Bibby           34   4-6  9-10   1-3  3  1   20
Wessel           3   0-0   0-0   0-1  0  0    0
Terry           20   1-6   3-5   0-1  4  2    6
Edgerson        15   0-1   2-2   1-3  2  3    2

_______________________________________________
TOTALS         200 22-55 34-43 11-38 11 13   87
_______________________________________________

Percentages: FG-.400, FT-.791. 3-Point Goals: 9-19, .474
(Dickerson 2-4, Simon 3-6, Bibby 3-5, Terry 1-4).
Team rebounds: 3. Blocked shots: 2 (Davison, Edgerson).
Turnovers: 18 (Dickerson 6, Bibby 4, Edgerson 2, Simon 2,
Terry 2, Bramlett, Davison). Steals: 8 (Bibby 2, Davison 2,
Simon 2, Dickerson, Edgerson).

Next up: Arizona State, January 5, 1998, Monday evening at 5:30 pm (8:30 pm Eastern, but this is SoCal, so why do we care about 8:30 Eastern anyway?). Presumably the game will be televised and also aired on the Radio at 1150 am here in SoCal.