Ben Howland said Friday that UCLA’s compliance department is looking into Shabazz Muhammad’s Gucci backpack, one he was seen wearing after the team’s 84-73 win at No. 6 Arizona. Yahoo! Sports’ Pat Forde pointed out the backpack after the swingman scored a game-high 23 points. He didn’t make any explicit accusations, but did bring up Muhammad’s three-game suspension from the beginning of the season.

(UPDATE: The UCLA compliance office confirmed it was a family gift and closed the matter.)

From Yahoo! Sports:

After putting the Bruins on his back with a game-high 23 points, Muhammad put something else on his back before leaving the arena – a black Gucci backpack.

It was a nice look.

Nice enough that I checked Gucci.com Thursday night and found 18 backpacks, with the cheapest going for $990 retail. But, hey, I’m sure these things can be found on sale, right?

Howland did not want to offer an opinion on whether or not he felt the issue was overblown, but Muhammad’s sister Asia responded to Forde on Twitter.

She said over four tweets: “I read your condescending remark about @phenom15balla leaving with a Gucci backpack after beating Arizona. That was a birthday present from myself (his sister) and his mother. I have the original receipt if you need to verify that. @phenom15balla doesn’t need anything from anyone except his family. I understand you’re a very distinguished writer, congrats on that, but you’re barking up the wrong tree on this one.”

McKale Center hosted a free-throw party in the final minutes, but UCLA held on at Arizona for a thrilling 84-73 win — easily the Bruins biggest of the season. The path to the Pac-12 title still requires an Oregon loss, but UCLA rebounded impressively from a humbling home loss to Oregon.

A telling quote from Travis Wear earlier this week: “We’ve done a good job going into games where we put a lot of pressure on ourselves — when we really know it’s going to be a big game. I think the last time we did that was Missouri. Going into that game, we viewed that as a ‘must-win’ and we did well.”

The Bruins led by as much as 14 seven minutes into the second half, but they’ve allowed teams to come back (see: Utah, Colorado). This time, in the face of the loudest crowd they’ve seen yet, they withstood a 10-0 run that cut the lead to 55-51 at 11:12.

Shabazz Muhammad, who scored a game-high 23 points, was responsible for a key five point swing with under six minutes to go, following up a 3-pointer with a steal and two free throws. That stretched the UCLA lead to 68-58. The Bruins then scored 10 of their final 14 points at the charity stripe to seal the game.