Big game, needless to say. The fact that we are 3-2 in Pac-10 play is not a good sign if we want to enter the Pac-10 tourney with a high seed. UCLA is damn good, and frankly after the let down in USC I know not many of us are expecting much, especially since in our last 5 at UCLA we are 0-5 with an average margin of defeat of 16 points.
But lets take a look at the matchups briefly, because this is a different team.
Harden is going to come out and be aggressive. He was embarassed by his performance Thursday night against USC, and is looking to prove that he is worth all of the high draft talk that scouts have been placing upon his young shoulders. Pendergraph has typically been weak against UCLA, and has been hampered by an injury. These two guys need to get going. The rest of the pieces seem to fall into place when those two are in the right mindset.
UCLA runs their offense through Collison, and it will be interesting to see how our zone works against UCLA - one of the deepest, most offensively efficient teams in the country (almost 77 points per game). Gotta lock down the man with the rock.
It boils down to a few obvious things - this team goes as Harden goes. When he was locked down, our role players could only carry the team so far against USC. Kuksiks can shoot lights out, the bench can provide some energy, and our D is good. We just need everything to come together, and that is a lot to ask on the road. Lets just hope D Glass doesn't turn the ball over 6 times again.
Here goes nothin'.
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