NEW YORK– In a wide open season where there are so many contenders for the national championship, we c ould see this being UCLA’s year.
The Bruins appear to have it all, NBA talent, experience, depth, size and athleticism.
UCLA had a statement win here yesterday, exposing Kentucky’s lack of shooters and pure point guard play during a 63-53 victory over the 13th ranked Wildcats in the CBS Sports Classic before a sellout crowd at the Garden.
And it was the Bruins’ second big victory during a week long road trip, coupled with an impressive 87-60 victory over 17th ranked Maryland at College Park,in which UCLA rolled to a 47-17 lead at half.
The Bruins are 10-2 and ranked 16th in the AP Top 25 with losses to Illinois and Baylor in back to back neutral site games at Vegas, but they are one team you wouldn’t want to play in March. They have a huge upside.
“I think just put an edge on our shoulder,” senior wing Jaime Jaquez said. “‘We had a lot to prove on this trip. We knew that we dropped two in Vegas and we knew we were a much more capable team than we showed. We were on a mission’to get better every day and prepare for this and show the world what we can do.”
The 6-7 Jaquez, the pre-season Pac-12 Player of the Year, scored 19 points, senior point guard Tyger Campbell, a first team All Pac-12 selection, and 6-5 junior guard Jaylen Clark added 15 as the Bruins, who showed they could beat ranked opponents with offense or defense. 7 Pick your poison. Defensively, they limited 6-9, 260-pound national Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe to eight points, held guards Antonio Reeves and Cason Wallace to a combined 4 for 26 and forced point guard Sahvir Wheeler into six turnovers. The Cats shot just 32.6 percent shooting 6 for 21 from the field. The Bruins wrapped up the game by gobbling up the last ten rebounds or loose balls in the game.
“We know what we’re capable of if we pllay with the toughness we played with this week,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “We take care of the ball. We had a few more turnovers than we’re used to tonight, but we’re still plus five in that category. We also outreobunded
Kentucky by one So we’ve got enough talent, but what we’ve finally got to a point, it wasn’t that we were selfish. Ithink somethings our confidence and our talent, early on when we played Illinois in Vegas, we’re going to win because we’ve got those players. We pass the ball. We’re unselfish. You’ve got to to be able to defend the other team. It’s really hard to win when you give up 79,80 points to ranked teams. It’s hard to get a lot of points on Kentucky. I mean, it just is. They’re so big around the rim. They’re so athletic on the
wings The game becomes a rock fight. blood bath, whatever you want to call it. It’s jsut hard to get buckets. So you’re got to be hard to score on. So we got to a point where our guys are embracing that. They know we’re going to go win the game with defense. If we
have a good night, we’ll win by 20, but we’re going to win.You got to stop the other team.”
When Cronin first arrived in Westwood, other schools attempted to negatively recruit him because his Cincinnati teams used to play in the 50’s and West Coast basketball took its cues from the Lakers’ Showtime teams with Magic and Kareem.
But it’s easy to change your philosophy when you can recruit future NBA talent. “When I at Cincinnati they called me to clinics to talk about defense,” Cronin said. “Now’ Im going to lecture on offense..
The new thing is tempo,” Cronin said. “Look at their tempo. Look at their tempo. You know what I say Look at the tempeature. We’re going home and it’s going to be 75.
I’m grilling out on Christmas. I’ve got better players. Way smarter. You look like a genius when you got Jaime and Tyger playing a two man game. The thing about being at UClA, you have a chance to get guys who
can really score. You also can try to pick a little bit and get guys who care. We got both this year. Because even our freshman, none of them pllayed great tongiht, but they’re all great guys And they’re going to be big parts of our program. But eeryone’s a better coach when they have great players.
