Bruins Show They Belong

They aren’t handing out slots in the NCAA tournament just yet. No team has been seeded. No team has clinched the Pacific 10 Conference title. The defending champion Arizona Wildcats aren’t about to pass the torch to anybody until they have to. And UCLA Coach Ben Howland won’t talk about torches or anything else beyond his next game for fear of getting burned.

But caution and coach speak, technicalities and possibilities aside, anyone who was at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday afternoon would have to concede the obvious: There has been a major shift in the Pac-10 landscape.

Proving themselves worthy of their No. 14 ranking, 19-4 record and conference-leading mark of 9-2, the Bruins beat the Wildcats, 84-73, for their first conference sweep of Arizona since the 1996-97 season.

The Wildcats dropped to 13-10 overall and 6-5 in conference play, dealing a serious blow to their hopes of repeating. They are now three games behind the Bruins with seven to play.

The only negative of the day for UCLA was yet another injury. Guard Jordan Farmar hurt his left ankle early in the second half when he came down awkwardly after going for the ball. The sophomore point guard played the rest of the game. X-rays taken after the game were negative and he was diagnosed with a mild sprain.

“They would have to kill me to take me out,” Farmar said.

As expected, Howland did nothing but praise his vanquished foe after the game.

“Arizona is talented,” he said. “They are good. They have a Hall of Fame coach [in Lute Olson].... I expect Arizona to win the rest of their games and come in [to the Pac-10 tournament] hot.”

To do so, they would have to put two good halves together, something the Wildcats were unable to do Saturday.

Arizona fell behind by 20 in the first half while committing 13 turnovers, then switched to a zone defense for the first time in nearly a month. After falling behind, 58-34, in the second half, the Wildcats scored the next 12 points to ignite a 16-3 run. The Wildcats soon cut the margin to seven points, but could get no closer.

What had to be especially encouraging for the Bruins was that they held off the defending conference champions even though their primary weapon all season, defense, was malfunctioning repeatedly. Time and again, there was a Wildcat open under the basket without a defender within reach.

The numbers told the story: Arizona shot 58% from the floor, the highest percentage allowed by UCLA this season.

“That is really astounding,” Howland said. “Usually a team that shoots 58% wins.”

But the Bruins responded with some firepower of their own, led by Arron Afflalo, who scored a career-high 27 points. The sophomore guard had been mired in a shooting slump until breaking out in UCLA’s previous game, Thursday night against Arizona State. And he again had his troubles from the floor Saturday, making only five of 12 from the field. But he responded to Howland’s urging to drive inside. As a result, Afflalo earned 16 free throws and made 13 of them. Both were career-high totals.

Howland credited Afflalo’s big game to increased stamina after he ordered the guard to stay out of the gym and rest for two days last week.

“You don’t prepare for a marathon,” Howland said, “by running a marathon a day for five days in a row” before the race.

Although he was in foul trouble for much of the afternoon, and ultimately fouled out in the final minute, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA’s rebounding leader this season, managed to again lead the team. Mbah a Moute had six rebounds in only 19 minutes.

Hassan Adams, Arizona’s offensive leader, again filled that role with a team-high 19 points. But he had only seven in the first half, a key reason the Wildcats sunk into a hole from which they couldn’t extricate themselves.

The question now is, can they dig themselves out before season’s end?