UCLA aims to continue its recent success on final trip of regular season

You’ve come a long way, baby Bruins.

From the depths of losing to Belmont and Liberty at home and then losing its coach to a midseason dismissal, UCLA has risen to late-season respectability.

Now a swaggering team that has won three games in a row and four of its last five is seeking a Rocky Mountain high.

Road wins over Colorado and Utah this week could vault UCLA to third place in the Pac-12 Conference standings, a fairly lofty spot for a team that had been in disarray only a few weeks ago.

One scenario is simple: win both games and UCLA will have assured itself of a top-four seeding for the conference tournament and a corresponding first-round bye.

Things get much more complicated if the Bruins (16-13, 9-7) split the games or get swept. They could finish as low as ninth in the jumbled standings, which would necessitate an extra game in the conference tournament and make the prospects of a deep run far more unlikely.

“We know that it’s all in our hands,” sophomore forward Kris Wilkes said. “We beat Utah and Colorado, and we’ll be good. It’s not like if somebody else wins, we have to worry about somebody else. It’s all on us.”

To complete the road sweep, the Bruins will have to beat two teams that defeated them at Pauley Pavilion and are far more formidable at home.

UCLA’s first challenge comes against Colorado (17-11, 8-8) on Thursday night at the Coors Events Center, where the Buffaloes are 5-2 in Pac-12 play, enjoying a homecourt advantage.

It can be loud inside Colorado’s home arena, which resembles an old barn, but the biggest part of its advantage comes from the altitude. The Buffaloes even provide a “pregame altitude warning” as a means of intimidation on their scoreboard before games, noting that the arena is situated 5,345 feet above sea level.

UCLA interim coach Murry Bartow said he spoke with predecessor Steve Alford in an effort to understand what it takes to win on the so-called mountain trip. The Bruins needed a school-record 19 three-pointers to prevail in their last road victory over Colorado in January 2017. It took a comeback from nine points down and a late defensive stop two days later for a victory over Utah and a two-game road sweep.

Bartow said he might change his substitution patterns to compensate for the high altitude, subbing out players earlier than normal and not letting them play extended stretches that could wear them out.

One thing he won’t want to alter is his players’ newfound sense of urgency that sophomore forward Chris Smith said was sparked by all the losing earlier this season. Of course, after some recent success, the focus has shifted to keeping their edge.

“We’re trying to work on not being complacent,” Smith said, “because no matter how many games we win, we can always get better.”

Much of the Bruins’ improvement has come from reducing turnovers and maintaining their composure whenever the other team is making a run.

“Earlier on in the season, I would think, ‘They’re making a big run, lemme try to make something happen to get it back,’ ” sophomore point guard Jaylen Hands said, “but I’ve learned to just take it play by play. And actually, you’re feeding into the run if you’re going wild trying to stop it immediately, so just taking it slow, play by play, doing what you need to do to get back” is the best way to respond.

If all goes as planned, in what might qualify as their toughest tests since hitting the road to face Cincinnati and Ohio State in December, the Bruins will have the answers once more.

UP NEXT

AT COLORADO

When: Thursday, 6 p.m. PST.

Where: Coors Events Center.

On the air: TV: ESPN2; Radio: 570.

Update: UCLA has gone 3-0 on the front end of its conference trips and 0-3 on the back end. One area the Bruins have continued to struggle with even amid their recent success is defending the three-pointer, particularly in the corners. “You’ve just got to cover ground quicker and get to shooters quicker and run guys off the line better,” Bartow said. UCLA will likely play its fourth consecutive game without shooting guard Prince Ali, who is recovering from plantar fasciitis in his left foot.