Ready to play?
A theme for several UCLA veteran players in discussing Saturday's blowout loss to Arizona was the inability to overcome Thursday's tough loss at Arizona State.
"You've gotta bounce back. You've got to,'' Bruins point guard Darren Collison said. "Anybody that knows how to play basketball, you're gonna lose tough games. It's not how you lose, but how you bounce back from the loss."
Thursday's game against Washington is the opportunity to make amends. Is 4 days enough to get ready?
When I coached high school basketball, the ONE factor that was very difficult to deal with was a disappointing loss...because you have such a quick turn around in just 3 or 4 days.... 2 day turn around is even harder to get focused back the the game coming up.....it just killed me inside, and took its toll on me mentally when it did happen.....
It would be nice to say that we have learned from previous mistakes (WA trip) and have moved on and become better but that certainly wasn't the case in AZ. Our inability to win on the road is a sign of a young and inexperienced team which is a bit surprising given we have three Seniors in our starting five. We obviously need to bounce back on Thursday but what will be even more telling is how we play in the Bay area, especially at Haas. How we look there I think will foretell our post-season fate.
The Bruins are predictable on defense leaving opposing coaches lots of practice time for offensive preparation. Why not throw in a zone once in a while?
Where is J'mison Morgan? His conditioning won't improve sitting on the bench. Roll should be starting. Perhaps Holiday would be better coming off the bench. The reverse is true for Keefe. Collison must take over games like Thomas of UW and Wise of AZ.
When you have players inbounding the ball directly to the opposing team, you know they don't have their head in the game.