Bruins doing as fine as can be

The UCLA Bruins were expected to miss point guard Jordan Farmar so much, miss his swagger and confidence, miss his gung-ho aggressiveness on offense and his unending desire to take over basketball games.

Except now comes modest sophomore Darren Collison, newly named most valuable player of the EA Sports Maui Invitational tournament, “amazingly quick,” Georgia Tech Coach Paul Hewitt said, “such a good player.”

How could UCLA make up for the stout defense of Cedric Bozeman and the lanky spread of 7-foot Ryan Hollins, two other starters for the Bruins of a season ago who went to the national championship game?

Except now comes junior Arron Afflalo, humbled a little by his unsuccessful dabbling in the NBA waters, eager to work harder on his shot and still be a fierce defender.

Next to him is Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, last year’s Pacific 10 Conference freshman of the year, a year stronger and smarter, a player, Hewitt says, “who has improved his ball skills so much at UCLA. He’s improved so much just from last year to this year.”

And with them? Junior center Lorenzo Mata, who if only he had made more than one of his eight free throws Wednesday night in UCLA’s 88-73 win over Georgia Tech, would have had his second straight double-double.

His first came Tuesday against Kentucky, when Mata had 12 points and 11 rebounds. Against the Yellow Jackets it was nine points and 10 rebounds. “And he only had four practices,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said of Mata, who spent most of the preseason recovering from knee surgery.

UCLA’s fifth-ranked basketball team is on a roll, off to a 4-0 start with wins over nationally ranked Kentucky and Georgia Tech on the way to the Maui championship.

So Howland answered a resounding, “No,” when asked whether he was surprised at this result since UCLA had lost, with Farmar, “its heart and soul.”

“No offense,” Howland said, “but the heart and soul of this team, and no disrespect to Jordan, but it’s the guy on my left. He plays with such passion on both ends of the court.”

Howland’s “guy on the left” was Afflalo, who also thought about leaving early. But here he was, head hanging because though he had scored a team-high 19 points, Afflalo had made only two of his eight three-point shots in UCLA’s Maui championship game.

The coach could as well have pointed at Collison, who averaged 13.3 points, 7.0 assists and 2.7 steals over the three-game tournament.

Preseason talk was that Afflalo and redshirt sophomore Josh Shipp would have to carry the young Bruins early, but it was Collison, Mbah a Moute and Mata who were the Hawaii stars.

“That was the key to our success,” Afflalo said about Collison. “His ability to score, doing lots of little things people don’t notice. He creates havoc for us on defense, he’s become a reliable shooter, does all that and runs the offense.”

Hewitt spoke with respect about Mbah a Moute, who grew up in Cameroon and played high school basketball in Florida.

“He’s relentless,” Hewitt said. “He’s got such long arms and what’s interesting to me is that he’s improved an awful lot since high school. He was always a hard-nosed kid, but his ball-handling is much better than I remember. He’s a great presence. He was never in a hurry unless it was time for offensive rebounding.”

Kentucky Coach Tubby Smith had praised Mata’s “quick jumping and aggressiveness” Tuesday night.

Collison said it was a team effort, and that wasn’t a cliche. Kentucky’s Smith had said UCLA was “quicker and tougher” than the Wildcats. Hewitt admired UCLA’s depth and relentless attention to defense. “And we’ll get better,” Afflalo said.

The Bruins are off until Tuesday, when they begin a stretch of three straight games against Big West Conference opponents -- Long Beach State, UC Riverside and Cal State Fullerton at Pauley Pavilion.

But first Howland rewarded his team with two days off in Maui. “They’ve earned that,” Howland said.

No one in Maui argued.

diane.pucin@latimes.com