Team expects Shipp to be a hit after a miss

Sophomore forward Josh Shipp missed UCLA’s 65-64 victory over USC last month because of a sore hamstring. He was happy, though, to cheer Arron Afflalo’s fall-away jump shot with four seconds left that gave the Bruins a game they seemed to have lost.

Shipp, who is UCLA’s third-leading scorer at 11.7 points a game and the fourth-leading rebounder, is recovered now and point guard Darren Collison is happy about that.

“Josh helps us get some easy buckets by running the floor,” Collison said Tuesday. “We didn’t get many easy buckets last time.”

Afflalo, who leads the Bruins in scoring at 18 points a game, said he welcomed Shipp’s presence. “With Josh here, it’s another scorer for USC to worry about,” he said.

He also said he had watched the video of his game-winning USC shot “over and over.”

USC had taken the lead 18 seconds earlier by completing a stunning seven-point run capped by Nick Young’s four-point play.

“It was a hard time for us,” Afflalo said. “Things had changed so much, so fast, they took the lead, had the momentum.”

Had Afflalo missed, USC would lead the Pacific 10 Conference by a game over the Bruins, and that’s a notion Afflalo can’t quite grasp.

“I haven’t really paid much attention to the standings,” he said. “I just assumed we were in first, Oregon’s right there. That’s just the way I looked at it because of the rankings. I looked at the standings the other day and USC’s one game back. We lose this game, we’re in a tie. That is surprising a little bit.”

Shipp is happy to be playing in this game. He doesn’t care that USC is ranked 19th nationally -- UCLA is second. If USC were ranked 200th, Shipp said, he would feel the same.

“They hate us, we hate them,” he said. “Playing for first place, that just adds to it.”

*

UCLA Coach Ben Howland said USC center Taj Gibson should be a strong candidate for top freshman honors in the conference. He also said it’s good to have a good USC team as a Los Angeles opponent partner.

“I think this is a hard road trip for teams now to come in and play in Los Angeles,” Howland said. “It’s not like a lot of leagues, where you don’t have a travel partner. There are some benefits to having each other be good, especially for that second night.”

*

UCLA announced that design firm HOK Sport of Kansas City, Mo., had been chosen to prepare preliminary renovation designs for 40-year-old Pauley Pavilion.

Among HOK’s noteworthy projects are the Arizona Cardinals’ new stadium, Petco Park in San Diego and SBC Park in San Francisco.

UCLA’s goal is to dedicate a restored and expanded Pauley on John Wooden’s 100th birthday, Oct. 14, 2010.

*

diane.pucin@latimes.com