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Young and restless

Injury-plagued UCLA still ready to make NCAA waves

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Posted: Monday March 08, 1999 12:08 AM

Baron Davis: "We can't be looking down the road and think, 'What if they lose or this and that?' We have to be focused." AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- UCLA has no complaints about being the fifth-seeded team in NCAA South Regional.

"Everybody is excited to be in the tournament," coach Steve Lavin said Sunday. "We didn't put too much energy or emotion into predicting what seed we'd get or what region we'd be in."

The 12th-ranked Bruins, 22-8, will open the tournament Thursday against Detroit Mercy, 24-5, winners of both the Midwestern Collegiate Conference regular-season and conference tournament.

"Detroit is a team that can beat us," sophomore point guard Baron Davis said. "They're a real good ball club. They have real good players and a great coach."

The Titans are coached by Perry Watson, a former University of Michigan assistant. They are led by point guard Jermaine Jackson, the MCC's Player of the Year, and all-conference guard Rashad Phillips, who averaged a team-leading 16 points per game.

Detroit was among the nation's top defensive teams, limiting opponents to an average of 54.0 points per game and a .374 field goal percentage.

UCLA enters the tournament as "an incredibly banged-up team," Lavin said, with Davis' sprained middle toe on his right foot the biggest concern.

"It's extremely sore," Lavin said. "The good news is that it's not broken. It's definitely going to affect his ability to make the quick stops and starts, change of direction and his explosiveness. ... But he's a competitor and a warrior and someone I expect to show up Thursday ready to play and compete."

Davis sustained the injury in Thursday's 68-65 victory at Arizona State and aggravated it during Saturday's 87-70 loss at No. 13 Arizona. Freshman guard Ray Young bruised his right hip against Arizona State, a bruised right hand kept senior guard Brandon Loyd out of the Arizona game, freshman forward Jerome Moiso has been bothered by sore arches while freshman center Dan Gadzuric underwent season-ending arthroscopic knee surgery Feb. 25.

The last time the Bruins played a tournament game at Indianapolis' RCA Dome, it was a 43-41 upset loser to Princeton in a 1996 first-round game.

"With this group, that's irrelevant," Lavin said of his 13-player team composed of six sophomores, five freshmen, one junior and Loyd, the lone senior and only one player remaining from that game. "To them, anything that's a year old is considered prehistoric history."

If UCLA wins, it will face either fourth-seeded Ohio State or 13th-seeded Murray State in a second-round game Saturday.

"I looked at the bracket and I looked at every team in the bracket and said, 'We can do pretty well, but we have to take it each game at a time,'" Davis said. "We can't be looking down the road and think, 'What if they lose or this and that?' We have to be focused."

 

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