Bruins Have ‘Em on Run

We are blessed with two entertaining, athletic Pacific-10 teams on the local landscape. When UCLA and USC met at the Sports Arena Wednesday night, it resulted in as much fast-paced action and highlights as you’d expect.

Only one problem for the Trojans: They couldn’t have picked a more appropriate style of play for the Bruins.

If both teams are going to play this way--hustling, digging, running, alley-ooping--the Bruins are going to do it better.

UCLA had something for everything USC tried and more in a 98-80 victory that the Bruins made a little more difficult for the themselves.

The Bruins did it with very little contribution from Baron Davis early on, which is a good thing because it means they haven’t become totally dependent on him. Their balanced scoring was practically ideal: 17 points for Jerome Moise, closely followed by 16 for Davis and Dan Gadzuric and 15 by JaRon Rush. Eight assists for Earl Watson.

The Trojans locked Davis up with a box-and-one defense early on, taking him out of the half-court game. When he finally got an open look at the basket, on a breakaway, the ball slipped out of his hands on the way up and he missed a dunk.

What looked good for the Bruins was he didn’t try to force the action, content to pass the ball instead of driving into double-teams.

“I didn’t look to come out and explode offensively,” Davis said. “I was looking to make sure we got into our sets and executed.”

UCLA actually ran some half-court offense. And the Bruins knocked down 10 of their 16 three-point shots, a season-high 62.5%.

They tried to run away with it in the second half.

In one sequence, the Bruins got a layup on a fastbreak give-and-go between Earl Watson and Ray Young, Young scored a breakaway dunk after Brian Scalabrine mishandled a pass, and another turnover led to a Young dunk off a Davis alley-oop.

With each basket, UCLA Coach Steve Lavin leaped higher and higher in front of the Bruin bench. Lavin ought to do endorsements for wherever he gets his suits, because if his pants don’t split after all the gymnastic routines he performs on the sidelines, that must be some pretty good fabric.

He wasn’t jumping for joy afterward, but he felt good about the way his team came back after that loss to Stanford on Saturday night.

The Bruins need to pack some good feelings with them, because they won’t play another game in California until February.

For the 10,986 in the stands, the game served its purpose as a nice diversion on a January night.

But this game didn’t serve much purpose for the Bruins’ preparations for March. There’s one concept these Bruins have yet to grasp: game management.

This baby should have been over midway through the second half. The Bruins led by 25 points. All they had to do was slow down the tempo, sing a lullaby and put the Trojans to bed.

Instead they they kept their foot on the gas pedal and almost crashed. They threw the ball away. They racked up the fouls and quickly entered the bonus situation, the quickest way to let an opponent back in the game.

Watson and Young fouled out in a 13-second span with more than six minutes remaining.

Each minute the starters remained on the floor brought the risk of more frightening sights like the twin occurrences with 5:56 remaining, when Gadzuric sprained an ankle and Scalabrine’s 240-pound body landed on Davis.

Their lead dipped to 10 points with just over two minutes left.

For a USC team that overcame a seven-point deficit with 27 seconds left to play at Oregon, that couldn’t have seemed too daunting at all.

There would be no repeat of that amazing finish Wednesday night. All of a sudden, that Oregon game is looking less like a turning point and more of an indication that the Trojans were only one miraculous Adam Spanich shot away from a six-game losing streak. As it stands now, they’ve dropped four in a row.

They don’t have an offensive flow that gets them consistent good looks at the basket. Whatever good things that do happen are usually the results of individual efforts. Sometimes it looked like they were trying too hard. For every extra point Scalabrine gained through his hustle, he gave one up through a turnover.

USC Coach Henry Bibby had a whole list of complaints.

“They got easy transition baskets.”

“We have to play defense and rebound. We scored enough points to win; we didn’t stop them on the defensive end.”

“We let people shoot the basketball openly.”

“We didn’t play smart at all.”

He even wondered why Davis wasn’t called for carrying on some of those high dribbles.

“Maybe that’s something we can teach our guys,” Bibby said.

Bad idea. Leave the UCLA stuff to UCLA. Right now, the Trojans are having a difficult enough time finding their identity.