Who will step up and lead the Bruins tonight against Colorado? Will it be Johnny Juzang? Or, will it be someone else? (Photo Credit: Scott Chandler/uclabruins.com)
When the team returns home for Tuesday’s game against the Arizona Wildcats, fans will once again be welcome to attend Bruin home games at Pauley. So that should help pump up the team. Bruin head coach Mick Cronin has been pretty vocal about the fact that he thinks it’s ridiculous that the Rams are playing in front of crowds of 80,000 at So-Fi while his team is restricted to just family members. And, he’s right. It is ridiculous.
But the Bruins now need to focus on beating on tough Colorado squad which fell just three points short of forcing Southern Cal into overtime on Thursday night.
Part of the reason for that is that the Buffs have only lost games to Tennessee, Arizona and Southern Cal since Colorado lost to the Bruins last month.
Starting Five
The starting five for Colorado looks to be almost the same as when the Buffs visited Westwood last month. There was one change to the starting lineup when CU faced the Trojans. Starting guard Elijah Parquet did not play due to an undisclosed injury.
We’ll see. I don’t know. I don’t have any feel for that. I don’t know if he’ll be out a day or a week or two weeks or a month. I have no idea.
So, if Boyle knows more than that he’s not talking, but I expect sophomore guard Nique Clifford to start in Parquet’s place again. On Thursday in his first start for the Buffs, Clifford scored five points and added seven rebounds, two assists, two blocked shots, and three turnovers over 34 minutes of playing time.
So, the Bruins will probably face Clifford instead of Parquet, but we won’t know until game time.
The rest of the starting lineup looks to be the same. Senior forward Evan Battey will play a big role in the game for the Buffs despite the fact that his scoring has dropped off during conference play. When CU came to Pauley, Battey was averaging 14.9 points per game. His average has fallen to just 12.2 ppg since.
Sophomore guard Keeshawn Barthelemy is another Buffalo whose stats have fallen since non-conference play ended. Barthelemy is now down to an average of 10.9 points per game from the 14.6 scoring average he had last month.
Meanwhile, Jabari Walker has remained one of the most consistent guys on the Buffaloes. His scoring average has fallen from 13.9 to 13.1 ppg to lead the team in scoring.
Tristan da Silva, whom the Bruins were able to shut down last month, has been even more consistent than Walker. His scoring average is 8.8 ppg, down from 8.9 last month. His rebounding average of 3.4 rpg is also close to what it was last month when it was 3.6 rpg.
Outlook
Overall, I expect tonight’s to be closer than last month’s game in LA. The Bruins are still finding their seas legs after their COVID break. Meanwhile, the Buffs’ COVID break was shorter than UCLA’s and that extra time has allowed the Buffs to start to gel.
I still think the Bruins will win tonight, but I do think tonight’s game will be a lot closer than the game in LA. In fact, it’s possible that UCLA will be so winded from the altitude that the Buffs could surprise everyone and win tonight’s game.
Listen to the Game With TMB!
TuneIn.com now has UCLA’s games listed as “premium” content. So, rather than using TuneIn, you can just listen through the official website like we have done with the small sports for a long time in order to listen to Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray call today’s game, but why would you want to? Yes, you guessed it! National treasure Bill Walton is working the game tonight with Ted Robinson on the Pac-12 Networks. How could you not want to listen to Big Red? But if you don’t, just be sure to right-click on it so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below. Listen to today’s game online.
In the meantime, here’s how to watch today’s game:
This is your #9 UCLA Bruins at the Colorado Buffaloes game thread.
#9 UCLA Men’s Basketball (12-2, 4-1)
Opponent: Colorado Buffaloes (12-5, 4-3)
Series Record: UCLA leads, 15-7
When: 6:00 pm PT, Saturday, January 22, 2022
Where: CU Events Center, Boulder, CO
TV: Pac-12 Networks National, Los Angeles, and Mountain with Ted Robinson and Bill Walton
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.
Looks like Jacquez has been playing better following his bout with covid and his injury from the first CO game. He looks like he’s back in early season form!
Much better defense than Thursday night, leading to much better offense as well. We're spreading the court well and utilizing our post players. What a difference!
20 seconds and Riley already called for a foul. Ugh
Let's go, Bruins!!
glad we hit our post player (finally!)
and again! Let's go, Myles!
Myles with the first bucket!
Myles again!
Myles!!
and great hustle on the offensive end by our boys!
Jaquez with the 3!
Myles looking great on defense so far; more like what we expected of him, altering shots and passes
Singleton!!
We need to sustain this level!
Hail yeah, Mom!
Wow Myles seems to be agile!
Wow.. Jaime threw up a prayer and was answered :-)
Myles on D!!
Singleton back is great!
I see Clark suited up as well :-)
Singleton with the steal!
Myles came to play tonight!
Jules from outside!
I'll have some of what Myles has!
Not a wise choice by Jules to drive it in with no one under basket
Can we please go back to moving the ball around and feeding the post?
Great idea, but bad pass with the high/low
Good.. let's slow down a bit and concentrate of defense... defense leads to offense
nvm lol
Great D, good hustle by Riley
This is a breathless pace to watch.
that's a post with altitude!
Call the trip!!!
No foul???
he may have tripped over himself
SPTRs!
Out for Riley again. Looks like a flop.
Juze! George Gervin?
Late whistle. Not a foul!
Johnny!
2 on Battey
Love Jaime creating the foul!
The officiating is horrible
otherwise known as a typical Pac12 game
LOL
Oh, c'mon!
Great d!!
our press doing a good job of slowing down the game, forcing Buffs into a half court offense and setting up our D
But we gotta score!
Great defense often leads to good offense
now let's see it BB!
Buffs got 3 players with 2 fouls
oh, Tyger...
Poor guy has been off the past two games.
Nice steal by Jules and he did a great job leading the fast break
Great defense! I hope Bernard's shot returns soon too.
I liked his last shot; it just didn't go down. He needs to keep shooting high percentage shots (and avoiding the 1 on 4 layups)
Clark with the jam!
Jaylen!
4 buffs with 2 fouls now
Indeed
great post play!
And the pass wasn't too low!
I'm happy to see we're making a concerted effort to involve our post players this game; so far we have 18 points in the paint!
Great ball movement!
Juze!
Did not give up on the play!
Looks like Jacquez has been playing better following his bout with covid and his injury from the first CO game. He looks like he’s back in early season form!
I almost agree, Chenalex. He Just isn't as dominant we we saw earlier.
Wow!
Much better defense than Thursday night, leading to much better offense as well. We're spreading the court well and utilizing our post players. What a difference!
Buff's 14 (!) turnovers led to 18 points for us :-)