At a glance: No. 11-seed UCLA vs. No. 14-seed UAB

No. 11-seed UCLA (21-13) vs. No. 14-seed UAB (20-15)
NCAA Tournament — South Regional, Round of 32
Saturday, 9:10 a.m. PT, KFC Yum! Center (Louisville, Ky.)
TV: CBS (Verne Lundquist, Jim Spanarkel, Allie LaForce)
Radio: AM 570 (Chris Roberts, Tracy Murray)

Scouting report: UCLA might have earned one of the NCAA Tournament’s most surprising bids this year, but after one game, the Bruins are set up as a favorite to reach their second straight Sweet 16.

It certainly helps that this is the team’s second time drawing a double-digit seed in the round of 32. The Bruins dispatched 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin without much drama in 2014, and could do the same to 14th-seeded Blazers on Saturday in Louisville.

The two rosters look quite different, but there is one similarity between SFA and UAB: offensive rebounding. Last year’s Lumberjacks squad was ranked 12th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, while the Blazers will enter the KFC Yum! Center tomorrow at No. 71 in the country. UAB isn’t particularly intimidating otherwise. According to kenpom.com, it ranks outside the national top 240 in effective field goal percentage (47.4) and turnover percentage (20.4).

The team’s biggest key might be freshman William Lee, a former Alabama Mr. Basketball who was hampered by a knee injury early this season and didn’t play against UCLA during the Battle 4 Atlantis’ seventh-place game — a contest that the Bruins took by 12 points and led for all by 22 seconds. Now healthy, Lee is averaging 13.0 and 7.3 rebounds in his last eight games, and his team is 5-2 when he grabs double-digit rebounds.

Lee also pairs with point guard Nick Norton as two of UAB’s more dangerous threats from outside. The former has hit 19 of 43 from beyond the arc, and is the only player on the team shooting above 40 percent there. The latter has hit 55 of 143, slightly behind leading scorer Robert Brown (56 of 176) in volume but comfortably ahead in accuracy.

Norton takes an absurd 84.2 percent of his field goals from 3-point range.

Opposing player to watch: On Friday, UAB coach Jerod Haase was asked how drastically he changed the roles of some of his players this season. “When I told certain guys that you will not shoot any more threes, it’s about as drastic as you can get,” he responded.

The best example of that is sophomore Tyler Madison, who grabbed a career-high nine offensive rebounds in his team’s upset of Iowa State on Thursday. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound guard is a key reserve who nabs offensive boards at a higher rate (13.4 percent) than anyone else on the team. Realizing this, he’s eschewed the 3-point line completely: After taking 15 shots from beyond the arc in his first 13 games this season, he’s launched just one since.

Madison only averages 6.3 points and 3.5 rebounds, but the sophomore’s ability to bully his way to rim makes him one of its more memorable players. Asked about UAB, UCLA’s 6-foot-9 forward Kevon Looney remembers being beaten out by Madison for a rebound.

“It’s hard when you’ve got guards flying in,” Looney said. “They get a running start on you, and they’re pretty athletic. When a guard gets a running start, he’ll probably outjump you. Bigs, you can just box them out.”

Key stat: UAB ranks 71st nationally in offensive rebounding percentage (34.2), but just 250th in defensive rebounding percentage (32.7). That should leave the door open for Looney and center Tony Parker to generate lots of second-chance opportunities for UCLA.

It’s good news in particular for Parker, who is looking to bounce back after an off game against SMU. The junior played 18 minutes to freshman Thomas Welsh’s 22, and wasn’t on the floor for the final five minutes despite only having two fouls.

“I thought Tony, for whatever reason, he was run down a bit,” said coach Steve Alford. “We tried to give him rest yesterday after the game, give him a lot of rest today, and I think he’ll be good to go.”

Odds: UCLA is a currently a consensus six-point favorite in Las Vegas. kenpom.com gives the Bruins a 73 percent chance of winning.

RELATED:
— UCLA last game against UAB was a seventh-place game in the Bahamas. The Bruins expect a better version of the Blazers in Louisville.
— UAB coach Jerod Haase, on defending UCLA’s Bryce Alford: “You can’t get caught up on the screens. You can’t get off balance. You can’t anticipate. You can’t try and take shortcuts.”
— Thomas Welsh has gone from a “gangly 6-foot-5 kid” at Loyola High to a valuable 7-foot center off the bench for UCLA.