Bruins wary of complacency

It took a discouraging loss at home to rival USC to help UCLA find its identity.

Since the Bruins lost to the Trojans, 72-63, they’ve swept a high-intensity trip to Oregon where their freshman center Kevin Love and his family withstood a barrage of personal insults. They followed that with victories over Arizona State and Arizona, two games in which the visitors didn’t appear to have a moment’s chance.

It would now be tempting for UCLA’s players to consider their weekend’s performances over Arizona State and Arizona, wins by a combined 55 points, and judge themselves fully formed. They are trying to fight that temptation.

“I think we’re very good right now,” Love said, “but I think we can be great. After the ‘SC loss, Coach [Ben] Howland said we came out too over-hyper. I don’t know if it was that or lack of intensity, but we just knew we had to change something.”

Added guard Darren Collison: “We had games like this last year. Arizona was one of those days. But we have to keep staying consistent, that’s the biggest key. For us to keep playing like this for the whole season, that’s what we need to do.”

Sophomore Russell Westbrook, who flourished against Arizona by creating controlled shots off the dribble in the middle part of the court, shrugged off the weekend’s efforts.

“It was good,” said Westbrook, who had a career-high 21 points against the Wildcats. “But we can be better.”

Arizona Coach Kevin O’Neill said after Saturday’s game that he liked the attitude of UCLA.

“They play with a chip on their shoulder,” O’Neill said. “The way you’re supposed to play. It was our job to knock it off, and we didn’t do that. Consequently, we got what we got. They’re very good. They’re very talented and deep. Sometimes you get what you deserve. Our play got us the score we deserved tonight.”

Love, who took some early season criticism over his defensive shortcomings, admitted that learning college-level defense was a tough task.

“It was a big adjustment at first,” said Love, who had ended up on the bench late in a Dec. 2 loss to Texas because Howland felt more comfortable with Lorenzo Mata-Real on defense. “I’m not going to lie. There are so many things I needed to learn. During the first part of the season I thought, ‘Man, I’m never going to get this down.’ But I kept listening. I pride myself on being coachable, I kept listening, coming in for film work. In high school you can take some plays off. That was the biggest thing for me. Don’t take any plays off. Push through to that second wind.”

--

diane.pucin@latimes.com