Howland...and the zone?
A day after turning his personal history on its head and employing a 2-3 zone defense in a 72-70 win over Arizona State on Thursday, UCLA head coach Ben Howland reiterated that it was not part of a grand conspiracy or a wholesale change in his basketball strategy.
But UCLA fans are happy to know that the Bruins have added it to their repertoire, as they prepare for today's 10 a.m. matchup with head coach Sean Miller's struggling Arizona Wildcats.
"We may use it again," Howland said during a conference call with reporters on Friday. "We may use it (today). But I honestly had no plans to use the zone going into the game. I did see the first 15 minutes of our game, and the zone definitely helped us and against certain teams we'll use it again."
Traditional Pac-10 powerhouses UCLA and Arizona have fallen on tough times this season, each team at 6-7, though the Wildcats have lost their lone conference game, to USC on Thursday.
Each team has been forced to tinker with its system.
In the Bruins' case, that means an upheaval to Howland's traditional man-to-man defense.
Howland, however, quickly shot down the notion that Arizona State was simply shell-shocked against UCLA's zone defense; he simply thinks his team executed well.
"They've seen plenty of zone, I think our guys did a good job in it," Howland said. "Eventually they started to attack it better. I'm just glad it gave us a lift when we went to it."
The Bruins moved into the zone defense midway through the first half, as the Sun Devils were executing precision perimeter passing and seemed to be a step ahead of UCLA. The player seemingly most affected by the switch was Arizona State's Rihards Kuksiks, who had 15 points in the first half and zero in the second.
UCLA senior guard Michael Roll said although the team did not devote much practice time to the new defense, the players were committed to being vocal on the floor.
"We kind of know where everyone is at all times," Roll said. "They ran Kuksiks corner to corner, but we were talking about where he was if he was cutting middle. We knew where all their shooters were and we got out on them."
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