Basketball

After watching Oregon shoot only 37% from the field in a loss to USC on Friday, UCLA Coach Ben Howland suspects that the Ducks might come up with a better effort when his team plays at McArthur Court this afternoon. "They missed shots they're not going to miss against us," Howland said. The 12th-ranked Bruins still remember their visit to Eugene last season when they needed 26 points and 18 rebounds from Kevin Love to prevail in a close game.

This will require scare tactics from USC Coach Tim Floyd. Everyone knows that Oregon State is the speed bump along the Pacific 10 Conference road. The Beavers have lost 21 consecutive conference games, including a 69-46 pasting by UCLA on Friday. They are bad with a capital B. Such are the perceptions of the Beavers, and many of them are true. For example, Howard's only victory this season was against Craig Robinson's team.

This is what UCLA did not want. The Bruins did not want to let a struggling Oregon team stay close into the final minutes. They did not want a relatively tame McArthur Court crowd to find its lungs, filling the old arena with a constant roar as the clock ticked down. This is what UCLA needed.

There is a possibility that this game will reverberate in Washington, D.C. It will certainly cause some shudders around the USC campus. As Oregon State fans chanted over and over, "Just like football," Trojans basketball players could finally say they were on par with the university's football program -- neither could beat the Beavers in Corvallis this season.

There is nothing better than having a week to prepare for the nation's 10th-ranked team. USC has that perk as it readies for Sunday's game against UCLA at the Galen Center. Then again, there is nothing worse than having to stew for a week about losing to one of the Pacific 10 Conference's worst teams. The Trojans are still mulling that over, having blown a 15-point lead Sunday in a 62-58 loss to Oregon State.

He still talks to her. He touches his reddened eyes, smiles softly, shakes his head, of course he still talks to her. Late at night, driving home from the gym, traveling from recruit to recruit, the coach of the nation's top-ranked college basketball team still talks to his younger sister. She was also a basketball coach, remember? She once took a team to the NCAA tournament in the same year he did, remember? There's a lot they can still share. There's a lot he can still learn.

Not that Jrue Holiday's teammates necessarily want to see him rattled, but they do wonder. What would it take to get under his skin? "I've never met a kid like that," senior Darren Collison says. "Always has the same composure, always has the same look." Steady and calm, even on rough nights, and there have been a few of those at the start of his college career. The freshman guard has seemed a bit tentative once or twice but never had that deer-in-the-headlights gaze.

This is a big deal . . . within the comfy confines of Southern California. UCLA and USC will go another round in their ongoing spat tonight in the Galen Center. Still, this installment seems to have been downgraded from the national stage from a year ago. The Bruins (12-2 overall, 2-0 in Pacific 10 Conference play) come in ranked, as they were a year ago, though at No. 10 instead of No. 4. The Trojans (10-4, 1-1) are still a threat, as they were when they knocked off UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.

After graduating in 2006 from L.A. Windward High, friends Erica Tukiainen and Hailey Dunham went their separate ways. Tukiainen headed for Westwood to play for UCLA, and Dunham went to USC. The junior guards still call each other occasionally and exchange text messages often, but they stay away from one particular topic: basketball rivalry. Today, the two will meet for the first time this season at Pauley Pavilion when the Bruins (10-3) face the Trojans (8-5).

One of those USC-UCLA moments occurred midway through the first half Sunday night, a reminder of the volatile relationship between the two schools. After a USC foul, the Trojans' Daniel Hackett had a few words for UCLA's Drew Gordon, though neither player was involved in the play. Gordon's response was to raise both arms and clip Hackett in the face as he walked away. "I just turned my head and got hit in the face," Hackett said. "I don't think it was appropriate at the time."