Bruins will give No. 1 a run for it
LEXINGTON, Ky. — It will be a Kentucky Derby, run indoors. The participants will wear high-end sneakers. They might feel like being put out to pasture after what could be the fastest 40 minutes in sports.
A possible documentary title: “Thirteen Seconds or Less.”
That’s the average amount of time both UCLA and Kentucky have needed to get a shot off this season heading into the showdown between the 11th-ranked Bruins (8-0) and top-ranked Wildcats (7-0) on Saturday at Rupp Arena.
Arizona State Coach Bobby Hurley said he hadn’t seen a faster team after Kentucky obliterated his Sun Devils by 46 points Monday.
The Bruins say they will embrace the pace.
“We’re not going to change our identity because we’re playing Kentucky and go to the 1-3-1 zone and walk the ball up,” UCLA Coach Steve Alford said. “It’s just not our DNA. Our players
like to get out in the open floor, they like to share the ball, they like to move the ball and create opportunities for each other and do that in an up-tempo style.
“If it ends up not being enough, then so be it, but we’re not going to change who we are. We’re going to Lexington to play the way we play and hopefully we’ll play well.”
Some of the head-spinning metrics favor the Bruins. They average more points than the Wildcats (97.0 per game versus 95.6) and more assists (24.8 versus 21.3) while needing the same amount of time to get off a shot (13.6 seconds).
Orchestrating UCLA’s attack is freshman guard Lonzo Ball, who leads the nation with 9.6 assists per game, putting him on pace to break Pooh Richardson’s school record of 7.6 during the 1988-89 season. He took three shots during the Bruins’ victory over UC Riverside on Wednesday and didn’t care that he scored only five points because his team won by 42.
“He’s like our guys — he’s got a nimble mind,” Kentucky Coach John Calipari said of Ball. “He’ll see something happening before it happens.”
Kentucky’s need for speed has generated three consecutive 100-point games, the first time the Wildcats have done that since December 1977. Opponents who try to keep up usually run into trouble.
“We love that,” freshman guard Malik Monk said. “Any team that tries to run with us, we love that because that’s what we play. We’re a fast team. If they do that, we’ll like that.”
The Wildcats have their usual array of likely oneand-done freshmen, led by Monk and fellow guard De’Aaron Fox, as well as forward Bam Adebayo. Monk is averaging a team-leading 19.3 points and Fox, against Arizona State, notched only the second triple-double in school history.
Ball knows Monk and Fox from the McDonald’s AllAmerican game in March. Their reunion could resemble another all-star game, though presumably there will be more than token defense.
UCLA’s ball movement has helped the Bruins lead the nation in field-goal accuracy (55.3%) while beating teams in a variety of ways. Senior guard Isaac Hamilton, who is averaging a team-leading 18.0 points, can score on dribble drives and has made 44.1% of his threepointers. Freshman forward T.J. Leaf is also equally adept on the perimeter and inside, where he’s a threat to catch alley-oop passes.
These teams have split their last two meetings, Kentucky scoring the game’s first 24 points during a blowout victory in December 2014 in Chicago before the Bruins whipped the Wildcats last season at Pauley Pavilion. Kentucky has been ranked No. 1 in each of the teams’ three most recent matchups, but intimidation probably won’t be a factor Saturday.
“I don’t have the slightest doubt in my mind,” Hamilton said when asked if he thought the Bruins could win. “All we have to do really is just kind of maintain and cut down their transition points and I think we’ll have them.”
The losing team could score 90 points, making for some tricky television viewing.
“I don’t know if you can get up during the timeouts to go get anything,” Alford said, “because it’s going to be quick and you could miss two or three possessions if you’re not back in your seat quick enough.”