Hampton: Beavers vs. UCLA Comments
This isn’t your father’s UCLA Bruins.
Or your brother’s or even yours.
College basketball fans are used to seeing UCLA at the top of the Pacific-10 Conference and entrenched in the top 25 polls.
Not this season. Attrition has come to Los Angeles and the Bruins have been hit hard. They are 9-11 overall and could face the prospect of a losing season.
The Bruins simply don’t have the NBA lottery-pick talent they’ve had in the past. That could result in the Bruins playing some zone instead of their usual man-to-man.
“UCLA now is playing zone and we hadn’t seen them playing zone and hadn’t counted on them playing zone,” OSU coach Craig Robinson said. “So that’s going to be a challenge to our ability to make outside shots, which we’ve been very inconsistent with this year. That and how hard they play are things we’re going to have to match up with. But the good thing about it is they have to match up with ours, too, and we’re playing at home.”
The Bruins are coming off a tough loss at Oregon. They could respond with a big game in Gill Coliseum or stay in down mode.
If the Beavers play like they have in the past two games, they could force the Bruins to stay in down mode. No doubt that’s the zone Robinson wants to see.
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