Bruins make sure it’s not sweet for 16

Josh Shipp wasn’t apparent, Darren Collison didn’t score in the first half, Kevin Love played with intelligent caution and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute didn’t play at all, not that it mattered on this first night of the 2008 tournament basketball for UCLA.

The top-seeded Bruins coasted to a 70-29 win over 16th-seeded Mississippi Valley State on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA West Regional at the Honda Center. The Bruins (32-3) will play ninth-seeded Texas A&M; (25-10) in the second round Saturday. The Aggies beat eighth-seeded Brigham Young, 67-62.

It was a night of offensive futility for the Delta Devils (17-16). They made only 13 of 66 shots for a percentage of 19.7%, the lowest in the NCAA tournament since North Carolina State made 19.5% in 1950. Their 29 points equaled the fifth-fewest in NCAA tournament history and is the lowest since Baylor scored 29 in 1946 in a regional final.

“This score, it could be a lot worse,” Mississippi Valley State Coach James Green said. “Let’s concentrate on a couple of things. How good UCLA is and what a class group. You know, they’re big, they’re strong.”

Big enough and strong enough that in the first four minutes UCLA had blocked five shots and with 7:09 left in the first half the Bruins led the Delta Devils, 33-8. For the game, the Bruins blocked 13 shots, one shy of the NCAA tournament record of 14 by Kentucky in a regional semifinal in 1998.

Sophomore James Keefe got the first start of his career in place of Mbah a Moute, who remained sidelined because of a sprained left ankle, and with 13 minutes left and UCLA leading, 53-19, all the starters except Russell Westbrook were on the bench, high-fiving each other when freshman Chace Stanback scored and jumping in unison when sophomore walk-on Mustafa Abdul-Hamid made a three-pointer with 38.6 seconds left.

Love, who had pulled a muscle in his back in last Friday’s Pacific 10 Conference tournament title game, finished with 20 points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots in 21 minutes. He had 18 points in the first half, including three three-pointers, but there were times the freshman center seemed more willing to watch rebounds go over his fingertips than stretch for them. But Love said his back felt fine.

“I had to get it a little more loose than usual, but I just played through it,” Love said. “Being able to rest more today, I hope that will help me on Saturday.”

No other Bruin scored in double figures, but 10 of them scored overall. No starter played more minutes than Westbrook with 26. The Bruins outrebounded the Delta Devils, 52-34, had 13 more assists than their opponents and played with the same intensity start to finish.

“It’s playoff time,” said Shipp who had six points on two-for-seven shooting. “One of our goals is to have good starts from the get-go, to jump out on teams and not let up. That’s been an issue with us sometimes, the slow starts. We don’t want that to happen to us.”

Collison, who finished with five points, 10 under his season average, said there were lessons to be taken from this game.

“We don’t want to have any letdowns,” he said. “We wanted to get out that first-time jitters feeling and I think we did a good job playing with one another, passing the ball, getting into a good flow. This is the time you don’t care about how many points you score. It’s all about winning.”

Abdul-Hamid, who has watched much more UCLA basketball than he has played, understands what makes the Bruins good. “Our best offense is our defense,” he said. “We held them to 29 points. That’s where our runs always have to come from, our defense.”

The lesson senior Lorenzo Mata-Real took was the one Coach Ben Howland must have shouted after the game.

“We have to learn not to make mistakes,” he said. What mistakes did the Bruins make? “We gave them too many offensive rebounds,” he said. And, indeed, the Delta Devils did have an advantage on the offensive boards, 15-12.

Love had to think a minute before coming up with his lesson learned. “It’s going to be a while before a 16 seed beats a one seed,” Love said. The message Howland had pounded into the Bruins was that it would be bad to have that record -- the first top-seeded team to lose to a 16.

“That’s why we had to have no mercy out there,” Love said. “That’s all I can really say. No mercy out there.”

--

[email protected]