UCLA BRUINS
Record: 18-1 (5-1 Pac-12) AP ranking: 3 RPI: 20 Coach: Steve Alford, fourth year, 83-41 (.669) Best win: Beat Kentucky 97-92 in Lexington, snapping the Wildcats’ 42-game home winning streak Worst loss: Only one is 89-87 at Oregon Best stat: Not only do the Bruins hit 53 percent of their field-goal tries overall, but four of their top six players hit over 50 percent and three of their top eight hit over 60 percent from the floor. Best player: Freshman point guard Lonzo Ball. Quite possibly the overall No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA draft, the 6-foot-6 ball is a taller, more polished college version of retired NBA All-Star point guard Jason Kidd. Ball averages eight assists a game and 1.7 steals and shoots 53 percent from the floor and 43 percent from the 3-point line. Can be dancin’ in the desert if: They don’t face a good defensive team that can also beat them off the dribble and get them in foul trouble. The Bruins’ lone loss to Oregon exposed their defensive weakness off the bounce. Otherwise, they’re arguably the best-balanced offensive team in the country and the most dangerous 3-point shooting team, given their 43 percent success in that category. Prediction: Final Four Coachspeak: “They have great players and an outstanding coach. They can score so easy, they put so much pressure on your offense. You just can’t match their offensive potency.” – Cal-Riverside coach Dennis Cutts after a 98-56 loss to the Bruins
Perhaps because their last NCAA title came in 1995, and their last Final Four appearance in 2008, it’s sometimes too easy to forget the UCLA Bruins’ 11 national championships are still the gold standard for Division I men’s college basketball.
But after watching his team narrowly lose at home to the Westwood Wonders on Saturday, Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak sounded as if he thinks the school that won 10 crowns from 1964 to 1975 under matchless coach John Wooden might need to find room in its trophy case for a 12th bit of hoops hardware.
“That’s a great offensive team,” said Krystkowiak, a former NBA power forward of nine years. “What makes them so unique is their ability to push the ball in transition and continue to move, and guys share the basketball real well. And then you throw in some of those offensive boards, it’s kind of a juggernaut.”
Now No. 3 in the Associated Press poll, the 18-1 Bruins (5-1 in Pac-12 play) are in every way a great offensive team. They’re ranked first in assists (22.1 pg) in the latest NCAA team stats, first among Power Five conference schools in 3-point shooting (43.3 percent), second in overall field-goal shooting (53.2 percent) and third in scoring (92.9 ppg).
Beyond that, freshman point guard Lonzo Ball, who may well become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, leads the nation in assists at eight per game.
Of further concern to anyone facing coach Steve Alford’s fourth Bruins bunch are the six players averaging double-figure points, as well as the fact that four of those six hit over 50 percent from the floor and three of the first eight connect on at least 60 percent of their field-goal attempts.
“They’re one of the better offensive teams I’ve coached against in 23 years of coaching,” Colorado’s Tad Boyle said after last week’s 104-89 home loss to UCLA. “Our defense wasn’t good enough tonight, but there’s a lot of people who play UCLA whose defense isn’t good enough when you have the firepower that they have.”
Few coaches routinely have good defenses more than Kentucky coach John Calipari. After watching his team’s 42-game home-court winning streak snapped in a 97-92 loss to the Bruins in early December, Calipari said, “To come into this building (Rupp Arena) – it’s 12:30, 9:30 (in the morning) their time, to come in and do what they did to us, and they manhandled us, they physically manhandled us. You don’t see that very often, especially in this building.”
Alford’s son Bryce – known throughout the Pac-12 as Big Shot Bryce for his ability to make difficult shots at the most difficult of times – leads this offensive machine in scoring at 17.8 points a game, including a stunning 47 percent accuracy rate from the 3-point line.
But it is the fabulous freshman Ball who gives the Bruins both their buzz and their bite. Despite an unorthodox shooting motion that moves from left to right, Ball hits 53 percent from the floor, 43 percent from the arc and 68 percent from the foul line.
But it is when he hits those shots that most breaks opponents’ hearts. Having played an awful first half statistically at Kentucky, Ball nevertheless delivered a 28-foot triple at the break to put UCLA up 49-45 at halftime.
Said Ball of that shot: “Coach Alford says to never hesitate. I wasn’t hitting the whole game, but in the big moments I’m going to come through.”
Having similarly struggled in the first half of an 89-87 loss at Oregon, Ball hit three straight triples in the second half to briefly rally the Bruins.
“That’s who he is,” Bryce Alford said of Ball after the defeat. “He’s a competitor. I trust that guy with my life. He’s a big-time player and he makes big-time plays in big games.”
History would side against a team built for offense winning the national championship. Of the last five NCAA champs – Villanova (last year), Duke, Connecticut, Louisville and Kentucky (2012) – not one gave up more than 64.2 points per game (Duke in 2015) and Louisville’s 2013 champs surrendered only 58.8.
By contrast, UCLA is surrendering 75.3 points a game, though its average margin of victory of 17.6 is similar to most NCAA title teams.
And maybe these Bruins are simply the exception to the rule. After all, how many teams have a 7-foot center who’s hit all 24 of his free throws to date, as junior Thomas Welsh has?
Then there’s this quote from freshman forward TJ Leaf (16.8 ppg, 8.9 rpg) after the Kentucky win: “A lot of people are just thinking we played out of our minds. We played a good game, nothing special. That is just who we are. We are a good basketball team, and I think we can compete with anyone in the country, and I think we showed that.”
If ending Kentucky’s 42-game home winning streak is just a good game, nothing special, these Bruins just might be special enough to bring NCAA title No. 12 to Westwood come April.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.