The UCLA Basketball team defeated Arizona State 78-65 on the road last night, giving them a much needed push going into their last six games.
The UCLA Basketball defeated Arizona State…the 11th place team in the Pac-12. Should we be excited about this?
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Overall, in regards to the entire weekend, yes. Despite a meltdown that was supported by some horrible officiating, the Bruins did very well in most of the game against Arizona. Then to come out and annihilate the Sun Devils upped the momentum for UCLA Basketball going forward.
Unfortunately it might be a too-little-too-late situation. The Bruins are still two games under .500 at 5-7 in conference play and are tied for ninth place in the Pac-12 standings.
Even if they run the table, they will not get a top four spot and that coveted first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament. So at this point the Bruins are just trying to put themselves in the best possible situation to impress the NCAA Tournament Committee. Winning their last six games will do that, though that seems nearly impossible.
The last six games are Vs Utah, Vs Colorado, at Cal, at Stanford, Vs Oregon and Vs Oregon State.
The good news is, four of their last six games are at home. The bad news is, every team except Stanford is above them in the standings. The good news is UCLA seems to do well against teams that are perceived to be better than them. The bad news is four of these teams are in the top half of the standings. To put things into perspective, UCLA is 1-5 against the top six teams in the Pac-12.
So can UCLA win six games in a row and improve their resume? It will be a Herculean task… but it could happen.
In a nutshell, this is UCLA men's basketball this year: pic.twitter.com/jSxfarEmqg
— Matt Joye (@mattjoye) February 15, 2016
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Though the Bruins put their foot down against Arizona State, the Sun Devils were not a threat to UCLA’s NCAA hopes (if the Bruins lost, that would be another story). Still, UCLA seems to have an outside chance of making the tournament, so let us hope they play themselves into the Big Dance with a late-season run… or things will get very awkward very quickly for Head Coach Steve Alford. Okay, more awkward.