Team Ready to Take Flight

The Bruins employed the buddy system Tuesday, making sure everyone got aboard a 5 a.m. bus to the airport for their flight to the Puerto Rico Shootout.

“You can’t come down unless you bring your buddy,” Coach Steve Lavin told them. “In other words, wake up your roommate.”

The contingent included guard Earl Watson, who has been resting sore ribs after being roughed up in the Santa Clara game last week, and his backcourt mate, Baron Davis, who has returned to scrimmages but is waiting for team doctors to clear him for play. Davis had major knee surgery at the end of last season.

“It’s extremely hard,” Davis said. “I feel great. I’m ready. I guess I don’t know what I have to do to prove it to them.”

The three-day tournament begins Thursday, with UCLA playing San Francisco. Other teams include Kentucky, Maryland and Xavier of Ohio. Lavin said: “These are kind of the dog days of practices where you have long stretches when there aren’t very many games. The guys are eager to get there and play.”

Sophomore guard Rico Hines was also looking forward to the long hours in buses and airplanes traveling to San Juan. He planned to spend the time with new players such as freshman Jerome Moiso, a native of the West Indies.

“There’s still a lot of stuff we don’t know about each other,” said Hines, who grew up in Greenville, N.C. “It gives me a chance to tell him about North Carolina.”