| Bruins on same page going into Pac-10 basketball tournament
UCLA has been ranked No. 1 in the country, finished first during the Pacific 10 Conference regular season to earn the No. 1 seeding in the league's postseason tournament and probably will get the No. 1 seeding in the upcoming NCAA tournament.
During basketball season, the Bruins are tops in this town, but don't expect to find any of their top players out at a Hollywood nightclub or in the arms of a starlet named Hilton or Spears.
What works for the football team from across town doesn't go for this UCLA basketball team.
"When you think of USC football, you think of Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, more TV-type stuff. It's not your typical atmosphere," said UCLA's Arron Afflalo, the Pac-10's basketball player of the year. "I think it's good to stay behind the scenes a little bit and shine when it's time. Who am I dating? I'm dating a little orange basketball."
The Bruins (26-4) open play in the Pacific Life Pac-10 tournament today at Staples Center as a team focused on taking care of business.
But some might question how best to do it. Push hard in the conference tournament, or protect the injured and rest the tired until the NCAAs begin next week?
Alfred Aboya has a bruised knee, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute has had sore knees all season, and Lorenzo Mata has a banged-up thumb, but there will be no break.
Whatever they have, they will bring it this week to best set up their NCAA tournament hopes. On this there is unanimity among the Bruins.
"The No. 1 seed, every little thing, matters," UCLA Coach Ben Howland said. "The smallest details are so important in everything. Did we lose momentum by losing last Saturday? Yeah. Is losing good for momentum? No."
If it's momentum the coach seeks, momentum is what his players will try to capture. This is a team remarkably of the same mind.
After games at Pauley, players walk out in groups of six or seven. Josh Shipp or Darren Collison will wait while Afflalo signs autographs. Collison's parents or Shipp's mother or James Keefe's father will shepherd Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Alfred Aboya out, making sure the two sophomores, whose families are back in Cameroon, have an adult who is concerned about them.
"This team is very close," Mbah a Moute said. "We all are here for the same reasons — to play basketball and to go to school. And right now, we want to win the conference tournament."
Said Howland: "Look, any game is tough in the NCAAs. Who are the potential eight and nine seeds? The likes of Indiana, Kentucky, Texas Tech, Michigan State, Villanova.
"We can't even worry about that. Seeding is advantageous. We want to be a one seed, we want to go to Sacramento, we don't want to travel."
The best way for the Bruins to earn all those perks? "Win now," said Afflalo, who on Wednesday learned he was a first-team All-American by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches, "and then what we want gets closer."
UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, whose father, Gene, died Tuesday, will participate in the NCAA selection process as a committee member this weekend.
Gary Walters, chairman of the NCAA selection committee, said in a statement that arrangements had been made to allow Guerrero to "participate remotely throughout the selection, seeding and bracketing process."
Dan, his brother John and sister Nancy were raised in Wilmington. The family was at Gene's bedside when he died after a long illness.
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