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  CHRIS BACKLEY Junior Dan Gadzuric dunks the ball despite being double-teamed during UCLA's home opener against Cal State Northridge last month. Northridge upsets the Bruins in one of the biggest shocks of the young basketball season. Over winter break, the team has a tough schedule of games, including the No. 14 North Carolina Tar Heels, who UCLA defeated last season, and the perennial powerhouse Purdue Boilermakers.

By Chris Umpierre

Daily Bruin Staff A season that has already been difficult for the UCLA men’s basketball team might get tougher over Christmas vacation. The Bruins, after dropping three of their first five games, will face three teams they could easily lose to: UC Irvine (3-1), No. 14 North Carolina (4-2) and Purdue (2-2), over the break. In addition, on the weekend before the first week of class instruction, UCLA will open the Pac-10 conference season against the Washington schools. UCLA head coach Steve Lavin, whose team has already played No. 4 Kansas and Kentucky, appreciates the arduous schedule. “As much as we want to win every game and go undefeated, the team understands you’re going to get beat,”he said. “It’s better to get beat early and learn from it than to have a false sense of security or a fool’s gold feeling about yourself because you are playing a bunch of patsies. “Sure, maybe you’re 10-0 but you are headed right into a buzzsaw come conference because you don’t have the reference point of playing a tough team.” The Bruins’ first opponent over the break, UC Irvine on Dec. 16, might sound like a pushover. But when you consider the hard time UCLA has already had with mid-major programs (see Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara) and the talent on this Anteater team, you’ll think again. Irvine (3-1) has already defeated a Pac-10 team in the early season, downing a pretty good Cal team 56-52 on Dec. 2 at home. It was the school’s first win over a Pac-10 team since Irvine beat Oregon State in 1994. Look for UCLA to try to get the ball down low to 6-foot-11 Dan Gadzuric and 6-foot-8 T.J. Cummings because the Anteaters are deeply undersized. “When we see the inside game is working (we’ve) got to keep going to it,” Cummings said. “When we see blood (we’ve) got to keep attacking.” Next up will be the heavily anticipated, nationally televised game against No. 14 North Carolina in Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 23. It’s the Tar Heels’ first trip to Westwood since they defeated UCLA 88-81 in 1989. They will come to UCLA looking for some revenge after guard Ryan Bailey banked two free throws at the end of last year’s game in Chapel Hill to seal a 71-68 Bruin victory. North Carolina is led by the deadly inside-outside duo of sophomore sensation Joseph Forte and senior center Brendan Haywood. Forte is a preseason All-American and is averaging 18 points and six rebounds per game. The much-maligned 7-foot Haywood finally looks like he is realizing his potential. On Dec. 4, the Carolina center registered the school’s first triple-double with 18 points, 14 rebounds and 10 blocks. First-year coach Matt Doherty coaches the Tar Heels. Doherty led Notre Dame to a 22-15 record last season and is excited about coaching at his alma mater. “We will play hard, we will play smart, we will play together,” said Doherty in a statement at the beginning of the season. “That sounds familiar. You’ve heard that before. It works. Our team will play as hard or harder than any team in the country. That I will promise you. I can’t ask guys to run faster or jump higher, but I can ask them to play hard, and they will play hard.” Two days before the New Year, UCLA will travel to the always hostile Mackey Arena to take on Lavin’s former mentor Gene Keady and his Purdue Boilermakers. Purdue lacks graduated forward Brian Cardinal, last season’s heart and soul, but that didn’t seem to matter when they played Arizona earlier in the year. The Boilermakers stunned then-No. 1 Arizona 72-69 in Indiana. Forward Rodney Smith led Purdue with 20 points and 8 rebounds. “They played us at the wrong time,” Keady told the Associated Press after the game. “We really believed we could beat the No. 1 team. I could see it in their eyes.” The Bruins better hope this is the right time to travel to West Lafayette because a loss here and one against Carolina could seriously hurt UCLA’s tournament hopes. UCLA will round out the Christmas vacation with two games they should win, against Washington (3-3) on Jan. 4 and Washington State (2-2) on Jan. 6 in Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins will be attempting to get some revenge from last season’s upset by Washington 63-62 in Seattle. The Huskies lost Bruin-killer Deon Luton, who had 26 points in last year’s win, to graduation. So far, 6-foot-8 Will Perkins has picked up the scoring by averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds. The last game before school restarts is against perennial league doormat Washington State. UCLA leads the series 78-12 and should have no trouble with the Cougars. Having started the season so poorly, these five games are a key stretch for the Bruins. If they hope to continue the streak of 12 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and 20-plus winning seasons, they will need to play well over the winter vacation. Lavin is looking forward to the amount of practice time he will have with his team. “That will probably be the best stretch of quality practice time that we will have all season,” he said. “There are 30 quality practice days in there and that will be important for us as far as working on our deficiencies and improving as a team.”

MEN'S BASKETBALL STARTERS, AS OF 12/8 SOURCE: Sports Info Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Web adaptation by MIKE OUYANG/Daily Bruin MEN'S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE Date Opponent Outcome/Time Nov. 1 Team Concept (Exh.) W, 118-64 Nov. 9 Kansas @ New York L, 99-98 Nov. 10 Kentucky @ New York W, 97-92 Nov. 15 Cal All-Stars W, 81-78 Nov. 21 Cal State Northridge L, 78-74 Nov. 29 UC Santa Barbara W, 83-77 Dec. 2 GA Tech @ Anaheim L, 72-67 Dec. 9 Hawaii 5:30 p.m. Dec. 16 UC Irvine 7:30 p.m. Dec. 23 North Carolina 1 p.m. Dec. 30 @ Purdue 9 a.m. Jan. 4 Washington 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6 Washington State 3 p.m. Jan. 11 USC 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13 Villanova 1 p.m. Jan. 18 @ Arizona State 6:30 p.m. Jan. 20 @ Arizona 10:30 a.m. Jan. 25 Oregon State 7:30 p.m. Jan. 27 Oregon 5 p.m. Feb. 1 @ California 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 @ Stanford 12 p.m. Feb. 8 @ USC 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10 @ DePaul 12:30 p.m. Feb. 15 Arizona 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 Arizona State 2 p.m. Feb. 22 @ Oregon 7 p.m. Feb. 24 @ Oregon State 3 p.m. March 1 California 7:30 p.m. March 3 Stanford 1 p.m. March 8 @ Washington State 7 p.m. March 10 @ Washington 3 p.m. SOURCE: UCLA Sports Info (schedule is tentative) Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN Web adaptation by MIKE OUYANG/Daily Bruin

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