GU expects rugged defense from Bruins
OAKLAND, Calif. – These are not Steve Lavin’s Bruins – which isn’t necessarily good news for the Gonzaga Bulldogs.
This year’s UCLA team, 29-6 and seeded No. 2 in the Oakland Region of the NCAA tournament, has a certain toughness about it, along with a passion for playing defense that rarely surfaced during Lavin’s seven-year tenure in Westwood.
They have, in essence, become Ben Howland’s Bruins. And the third-seeded Zags, 29-3 and winners of 20 consecutive games, figure to have their hands full when the two Sweet 16 teams square off tonight in the Oakland Arena for the right to advance to the NCAA’s Elite Eight.
Tipoff is set for 6:57, and GU coach Mark Few expects to encounter a troublesome UCLA defense that has been as stingy as any in the country in recent weeks, having held their last eight opponents to less than 60 points.
In addition, the Pacific-10 Conference tournament and regular-season champions boast a field-goal percentage defense of just .418. Few credits their third-year coach Howland, a former graduate assistant at GU and head coach at Pittsburgh, for the obvious change in defensive mindset.
“I think it’s a reflection of (Howland’s) personality,” Few said, when asked about the Bruins’ new-found defensive fervor. “He’s always been a tough, hard-nosed recruiter and coach.
“I think he brought that with him when he came out here from Pittsburgh. He’s got his own guys in there, now, and they’re really, really buying into how Ben does things. That’s why they’re winning games – they’ve got a toughness about them that comes from him.”
GU assistant Bill Grier, who had a hand in scouting UCLA for tonight’s game, said the Bruins do a terrific job of pressuring the basketball, trying to take away what a team does on offense and crashing the boards.
“If you watched Ben’s team at Pittsburgh, they were always kind of tough that way,” Grier said. “I’m not saying (the Bruins) are at that level, yet. But based on where they were when he first got them to where they are now, I think he’s done a great job of instilling his own toughness in them.”
On the flip side, Howland expects his team to encounter a major challenge in trying to stop GU’s high-powered offense, which is centered around junior wing Adam Morrison, the nation’s leading scorer in Division I.
“Adam is college basketball’s player of the year,” Howland said of the 6-foot-8 Morrison, who is averaging 28.2 points per game. “He can score from 3, he scores off the bounce, he scores in the post, and he rebounds his own shot as well as anybody.
“There’s no question he’s a great player.”
The two Bruins most likely to be matched up against Morrison are 6-5 sophomore Arron Afflalo and 6-6 senior Cedric Bozeman.
When asked whether he had lobbied for the chance to guard GU’s offensive wonder, Afflalo said, “It’s not really what I asked for – that’s just our job, whether it’s Adam Morrison or whoever the top player is on the opposing team.
“That’s what we do, night in and night out.”
Bozeman said it’s a matter of doing what Howland asks.
“We take pride in it,” he added.