UCLA brings sense of urgency to Pac-12 Tournament
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UCLA star guard Aaron Holiday might be relied upon to play every minute of every game the rest of the way for the Bruins. (Rick Bowmer/The Associated Press)
By Thuc Nhi Nguyen | thnguyen@scng.com | Daily News
March 7, 2018 at 1:50 p.m.
LOS ANGELES — It was purely coincidence that a replay of UCLA's win over Arizona in the 2014 Pac-12 Tournament championship game greeted visitors in the lobby of the Mo Ostin Center on Tuesday afternoon, one day before the Bruins were scheduled to travel to Las Vegas for this year's conference tournament. Six small screens combined to show the game in its final few minutes as UCLA came away with a 75-71 win.
Steve Alford, who was in his first year when he led the Bruins through that three-day, three-win jaunt in Las Vegas, didn't take time to appreciate the postgame celebration. He was busy getting ready to chase the team's next trophy opportunity.
The fourth-seeded Bruins begin their Pac-12 Tournament run Thursday against either No. 5 Stanford or last-place Cal at at 2:30 p.m at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Last week's win over USC at Galen Center may have been enough to secure UCLA's NCAA Tournament bid, but it's that time on the calendar when the Bruins (20-10, 11-7 Pac-12) know to not take anything for granted.
"March also brings a finality," Alford said. "It's about doing what you do the best that you can and knowing that there's got to be an urgency to every possession, and the lessons that you've learned through the course of the season, you've got to make sure those are being applied because you don't want to be learning lessons in March."
A three-game losing streak in January and a disastrously timed pair of consecutive road losses in February saddled the Bruins with tough lessons, the most obvious being that they can't afford to slack off for even a moment.
"You can't just have mental lapses for five minutes," guard Prince Ali said. "That'll cost you the game, and it's cost us a couple of games this year."
Ali paused for a moment.
"Well, more than a couple," the redshirt sophomore reconsidered. "If we do that now, you only get one game."
Whether the Bruins will get extra NCAA Tournament games will be up to the selection committee unless they run the table in Las Vegas to earn the conference's automatic bid. The urgency of the situation will likely require another herculean effort from star guard Aaron Holiday, who has carried UCLA with a Pac-12-leading 20.1 points per game while playing 37.3 minutes a night.
The workload may get even heavier for the junior from Campbell Hall.
"If we're able to advance, it'll be 40, 40, 40," Alford said of how many minutes Holiday will play in the Pac-12 Tournament this weekend.
Reporters chuckle at Alford's joke. It's funny because it's probably true.
Holiday has played 40 minutes in three of the past four games. The one outlier is a 39-minute performance against Colorado. He seems to get stronger as games goes on. The 6-foot-1 guard has scored 58.8 percent of his points in conference play during the second half or overtime of games.
But playing 40 minutes a night in the regular season isn't the same getting through the Pac-12 Tournament when there's a new game roughly every 24 hours. So surely, Alford can't seriously believe Holiday can play three, 40-minute games in three days to lead the Bruins to their first Pac-12 Tournament championship since 2014, right?
"Have you seen anything he can't do?" Alford responded. "He's just that special. Obviously I say that (but) if we can steal a minute or two here, we'll do that to get him rest, but Aaron's a warrior."
Pac-12 Tournament
No. 4 UCLA vs. No. 5 Stanford/No. 12 Cal
When: 2:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
TV/Radio: Pac-12 Networks/AM 570 or AM 1150
Thuc Nhi Nguyen | reporter
Thuc Nhi Nguyen has covered UCLA for the Southern California News Group since 2016. A proud Seattle native, she majored in journalism and mathematics at the University of Washington. She likes graphs, animated GIFs and superheroes.
thnguyen@scng.com
Follow Thuc Nhi Nguyen	@thucnhi21