University Of California At Los Angeles

With a smaller and quicker lineup this season, UCLA has been forced to work harder at rebounding, but there is a flip side to this predicament. The ninth-ranked Bruins said they expect to see a fair amount of pressure defense, probably in the form of a three-quarter-court press, when Arizona visits Pauley Pavilion tonight. That's where small and quick come in handy. "We're not worried," senior swingman Josh Shipp said. "I mean, we have good ball handlers."

Coach Ben Howland studied tape of USC's upset victory over Arizona State, paying attention to the way the Trojans limited Sun Devils star James Harden to four points. The coach had this warning: Don't expect more of the same when No. 16 Arizona State plays No. 9 UCLA at Pauley Pavilion today. "He's not going to have another game like that," Howland said. "This guy's a great player. This guy is a lottery pick in the NBA."

The head of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health said Monday he will personally oversee a "rigorous and effective" criminal investigation into the Dec. 29 chemistry lab fire that killed a UCLA staff research assistant. Cal/OSHA Chief Len Welsh's pledge came after a civil probe last month resulted in one regulatory and three "serious" violations, and fines totaling $31,875. The family of the research assistant, Sheri Sangji, had criticized the review as inadequate.

The way Josh Shipp sees it, he and his UCLA teammates pretty much got what they deserved after a few too many losses this season. "We didn't take care of business," Shipp said. "So we expected to get sent off." Sent off down a rocky NCAA tournament road, all the way to Philadelphia, where the sixth-seeded Bruins will face a potentially dangerous 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth in the first round of the East Regional on Thursday night.

UCLA hopes a pattern isn't forming that entails the opponent's tailback having a showcase performance. First it was Stanford's Toby Gerhart (134 yards). Then it was Oregon's LaMichael James (152 yards). This week, UCLA faces California's Jahvid Best , considered a Heisman Trophy front-runner before the Bears were thumped in consecutive losses to Oregon and USC. "If you don't get your arms around him, he is going to make you pay and pay dearly," Coach Rick Neuheisel said.

Halfway through practice, it looked as if the UCLA basketball team had lost another player, forward Nikola Dragovic heading for the locker room with a trainer in tow. But this wasn't another sprained ankle or sore back. Instead, Dragovic was sick to his stomach, apparently from eating pasta that had been left out too long. That's how bad it has been for injury-riddled UCLA the last few weeks -- gastric distress starts to look pretty good. "Food poisoning, he'll get over," Coach Ben Howland said.

The first time Ben Howland reminded Drew Gordon to put on a sweatshirt after practice, Gordon didn't think much of it. Only later did the UCLA center realize his coach was dead serious about bundling up. "The second through 50th time he told me," Gordon said, "I was like, oh, he obviously cares about our health."

No one had told James Keefe the whole story, so it took a few moments for the UCLA forward to grasp the ramifications. When the Bruins played at Oregon State on Friday night, they were facing a team coached by Craig Robinson, who also happens to be President-elect Barack Obama's brother-in-law. "So we don't have the U.S. rooting for us?" Keefe asked. At least not 53% of the United States. And hardly anyone inside Oregon State's aging Gill Coliseum.

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's an intriguing new dynamic surfacing in the USC-UCLA football recruiting rivalry. It's called competition. For much of this decade, USC Coach Pete Carroll has called the shots, picking and choosing and not having to worry about whether UCLA was interested in a high school prospect he wanted. Inevitably, the player usually ended up at USC. That's changing. UCLA is putting up a fight again, challenging the Trojans and even starting to win a few battles.