UCLA gives, gets lessons in win

This was more tutorial than basketball game for UCLA.

The Bruins, ranked fifth in the country, beat NCAA Division II Chaminade, 88-63, Monday night in the first round of the EA Sports Maui Invitational at the Lahaina Civic Center.

The Bruins (2-0) led, 17-2, in the first five minutes, and 43-20 at halftime, and when forward Josh Shipp went unguarded along the baseline for a loud slam dunk to put UCLA ahead, 50-26, with 17 minutes 19 seconds left in the game, Coach Ben Howland yelled for a timeout and stomped to the middle of the court.

It wasn’t the dunk he minded, but the two easy baskets the Silverswords (0-1) had just scored.

That kind of sloppiness will be more severely punished tonight when UCLA plays Kentucky in the second round.

The 20th-ranked Wildcats beat DePaul, 87-81, Monday. In the other first-round games, No. 12 Memphis beat Oklahoma, 77-65, and No. 21 Georgia Tech rolled past Purdue, 79-61.

No teams have won more NCAA men’s basketball titles than UCLA with 11 and Kentucky with seven, and that is the second-round matchup tournament directors had in mind when the schedule was made.

The 2,400-seat gym, which usually hosts recreational-league games, has a slippery floor and the noise bounces off the close walls. Bruins forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute lost his balance in the first few moments, falling hard and muttering under his breath.

Still, the Bruins felt right at home. At the start they were running and running some more. Guard Arron Afflalo made two quick three-pointers, point guard Darren Collison had a fastbreak layup, Shipp had a layup and a dunk while leading a fastbreak.

On Afflalo’s second three-pointer he was shouting, “Darren, Darren,” demanding the ball from his point guard, and Collison obeyed.

Afflalo finished with a game-high 25 points on 10-for-14 shooting, and Collison had 15 points, seven assists and only two turnovers.

“Darren Collison had a fantastic game,” Howland said. “As I recall he had his two steals on inbounds plays and turned them into layups.”

As soon as UCLA got its 15-point lead, Howland began substituting. He had said it would not happen too often that Collison would play 38 minutes in a game, as he had in the Bruins’ season-opening win over Brigham Young, and Afflalo and Shipp both came to Maui nursing sore spots -- Afflalo on his knee and Shipp on his surgically repaired hip.

So in quick succession sophomores Michael Roll and Alfred Aboya and freshmen Russell Westbrook and James Keefe took their turns. Howland was industrious in calling plays to get Roll, a three-point specialist, into open spots on the perimeter and in loudly calling for Westbrook to “take charge.”

Same thing happened in the second half. All at once Westbrook, Keefe, Aboya and Roll came in. Westbrook couldn’t inbound the ball in time on his first chance, Aboya missed a baby hook, no one guarded Chaminade’s Marko Kolaric -- who made the open three-pointer -- and then Aboya got caught setting an illegal pick. The second team still needs some work.

When the Silverswords were within 58-37, Collison and Shipp were back in the game. But the Bruins never seemed to get their defensive ferocity going. In the first two games UCLA has given up 20 three-pointers.

“They did a real good job in transition,” Howland said of the Silverswords, “a good job beating us down the floor and lining up for open threes.”

diane.pucin@latimes.com