High Five

There's a reason UCLA's opponents are looking lean and trim, maybe even a bit gaunt.
The Bruins are giving them a very balanced diet.

UCLA is one of just six Division-I teams with five players currently scoring in double figures - junior guards Malcolm Lee and Lazeric Jones, sophomore forwards Reeves Nelson and Tyler Honeycutt, and freshman center Joshua Smith - and the Bruins are well aware of the fact that they can score from all five positions.

"It's huge - you can't just plan to stop one or two guys," UCLA head coach Ben Howland said. "Any night, any one of our players can go off and have a big game. It's critical to have that balance."

The Bruins aren't exactly rotating 30-point games, but with three or four players scoring anywhere from 12-20 points in any given game, they've found the path to success.

UCLA has won six straight, 10-of-11 and 16-of-19, and is 10-3 in Pac-10 play heading into its matchup at 7 p.m. Sunday at Cal's Haas Pavilion.

"Joshua (Smith) has been really coming on the last half of the season," Howland said, "but you look at Reeves and Honeycutt and Malcolm and Zeek, and they've been consistent all year long."

The consistency has led to a common acceptance amongst the players, who walk the tiny rope of trying to do too much and trying to do just enough.

In Thursday's 69-65 win over Stanford, Honeycutt got off to a scorching start, scoring eight points in the first four minutes with two quick 3-pointers. As he started to cool a bit - finishing with 16 points on 5-of-12 shooting but 4-of-8 3-pointers - Nelson and Smith got into the groove, finishing with 18 and 13 points, respectively.

"That's good for us; any of us is having the hot hand and we're going to look to him to keep shooting," Honeycutt said. "I'm not going to shoot myself out of the game or shoot it to where it's hurting us, but I'm going to stay aggressive. If I'm having a good night, I'm going to look to shoot."

At the end of the day, its about did you win or did you lose. Last night, we were up 13 when Brown hit the shot from the corner, but everything had to go just right for them to make all those thress and put the game in doubt. As I joked about, we're great for sponsors. If we keep winning - getting big leads, relinqisoghing them and hanging on - I'll be happy.