Tournament Talk a Bit Premature

After UCLA’s victory over USC, Bruin Coach Steve Lavin and a few of his players were peppered with questions about the NCAA tournament and whether Thursday’s victory was pivotal.

The Bruins weren’t taking the bait.

“The tournament is so long from now,” point guard Earl Watson said. “We’re trying to win a Pac-10 championship first. That’s our whole mind-set from this point on.”

Said Lavin: “We’ve got a long way to go. But we’re playing a quality schedule this year, we’re ranked high in the RPI, we’ve got the wins over ‘SC, the Purdue win, the Stanford win. But right now, we just want our kids to get better and to keep progressing.”

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Backup point guard Ryan Bailey was suffering from a stomach virus and did not make the trip to Chicago. He played 12 minutes against USC and was scoreless, although he did try a shot and two free throws.

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In honor of freshman forward T.J. Cummings, the UCLA sports information staff unearthed the stat sheets from the Bruins’ four games against DePaul when Cummings’ father, Terry, was a Blue Demon star.

In those games, played in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Terry Cummings scored seven, 23, 19 and 20 points. UCLA was 3-1 in those games.

TODAY

at DePaul

12:30 p.m., Channel 7

* Site--Allstate Arena, Chicago.

* Radio--KXTA (1150).

* Records--UCLA 14-6, DePaul 11-11.

* Update--The Bruins, coming off a crucial victory over USC, had hoped to have more time to prepare for this game. They tried to reschedule the USC game for Wednesday, but the Trojans declined to move it. UCLA catches something of a break in that DePaul isn’t very good. The Blue Demons were ranked 21st in the preseason but clearly were overrated. One UCLA player to watch is shooting guard Ray Young, who has been ice cold from three-point range for most of the season, but Thursday started knocking down mid-range jump shots. If he gets hot, that will take a lot of pressure off interior players such as Dan Gadzuric and Matt Barnes. Jason Flowers should play more at point guard because Ryan Bailey didn’t make the trip.