COLLEGE BASKETBALL DAILY REPORT : Will Slowdown Game Faze Bruins?

Are the methodical Princeton Tigers the worst kind of matchup the error-plagued UCLA Bruins could have for Thursday night’s Southeast Regional first-round game in the NCAA tournament?

On paper, Princeton’s scoring defense, ranked No. 1 nationally, and weave offense, with quick backdoor cuts that play off opponents’ over-aggressiveness, seem likely to cause fits for the Bruins.

But Toby Bailey, UCLA’s leading turnover man, says it would be wrong to overstate the problems the 13th-seeded Tigers can cause for the fourth-seeded Bruins in Indianapolis.

“I don’t see where we’ve really had trouble,” Bailey said. “We’ve beaten the teams this year that had patience against us. Of the teams that beat us, Louisville didn’t have much patience, Kansas didn’t. . . . I’m not really afraid to play anybody that slows it down.”

Senior swingman Kevin Dempsey, though, says the Bruins realize that Princeton is better than, say, Oregon State, which held the ball for most of the shot clock in two losses to UCLA.

“I think we’d rather play a team that’s more athletic than Princeton--we play much better against athletic teams because we have such good athletes,” he said. “I mean, it’s a scary situation because [the Tigers] play so fundamentally sound, and sometimes we rush things a little bit too much.”