Ben Howland has gone back to basics at UCLA. Losing Final Four veterans like Darren Collison, Josh Shipp and Alfred Aboya will force that on a coach. Howland is emphasizing fundamentals to a team dominated by freshmen and sophomores, a bunch that was picked to finish third in the Pac-10 and isn't in the preseason Top 25 for the first time in five years. "It's different than we're used to at UCLA, what I'm used to in the past three years," senior James Keefe said. "But it's motivation. We got to prove to everyone that we belong. It gives us the chip on our shoulder that I think we need. Before we came in kind of like thinking we were just going to go through the conference, but we're going to have to fight every game." They begin Monday against Cal State Fullerton in a game that tips off at 9 p.m. local time as part of ESPN's 24 hours of college basketball. Senior Nikola Dragovic is the lone returning starter on a team that finished 26-9 and lost to Villanova in the second round of the NCAA tournament last season after three consecutive Final Four appearances. Dragovic is the leading returning scorer (9.4 points) and rebounder (4.3). Michael Roll, who led the Pac-10 in 3-point shooting last season (51.5 percent), is the third senior. The nine sophomores and freshmen on a roster of 12 scholarship players will have to get good fast, with six games in 14 days to prepare for their biggest one of the season, against No. 1 Kansas on Dec. 6 at Pauley Pavilion. "We have the talent and we have the players and the coaching to go as far as we want to go, it's just how we react to certain situations," Keefe said. "We can't take nights off. We don't have the skill or the players just to walk through a game and win." With the departure of starters Collison, Shipp, Aboya and Jrue Holiday, Howland is in reload mode, charged with shaping the youngest and least experienced team he's had going into his seventh season in Westwood. Howland is back to being a teacher of defensive stances, hedging on screens, hard cuts and jump stops, with less emphasis on development of the NBA-like talent he had the last few seasons. "We've got to work on basic fundamentals and continue to be patient and to understand, hey, we're going to make mistakes," he said. "We're going to have some growing pains early in the season." Especially at point guard, where Holiday was penciled in as Collison's successor. But he left for the NBA draft after one season. So the pressure falls to sophomore Jerime Anderson, who averaged 8.6 minutes while backing up Collison. Sophomore Malcolm Lee is likely to fill in at the point when Anderson takes a breather on the bench, but Lee will be needed more for his shooting. Like several of his teammates, Anderson has lost valuable practice time, in his case because of a groin injury. Freshman Tyler Honeycutt sustained a stress reaction in his right tibia and will miss much of this month. The Bruins have rarely had their starters playing together in practice. "As we continue to practice and continue to play together, we'll have a better chemistry and a better flow out there," Anderson said. "We want to get back on top of the Pac-10, that's the main goal right now." The Bruins' frontcourt will be led by Dragovic, who replaced Keefe in the starting lineup 15 games into last season. Sophomore Drew Gordon figures to start after averaging 11 minutes last season, while sophomore J'mison Morgan could be in the mix after improving his conditioning and weight during the summer. "The main thing is I want to make sure that everyone realizes that just because we lost our seniors doesn't mean we're the worst team," Gordon said. "I want to be more vocal, work hard, have a better attitude." In what could be a sign of challenges to come, the Bruins nearly got beat in their exhibition opener against NAIA opponent Concordia, winning by a point and giving Howland even more to worry about than what normally consumes him. "We've got to get our players to constantly improve," he said. "We've got to be a better rebounding team than we were a year ago, we've got to do a better job defensively." California was picked to win its first Pac-10 title since Pete Newell retired in 1960, marking the first time in more than 10 years that UCLA or Arizona wasn't the top choice. Washington was picked second after ending its conference title drought last season, when the Huskies won their first outright title since 1953. If the Bruins don't rise to the top of the Pac-10, a down season in Westwood might mean a middle finish in the conference and a low seed in the NCAA tournament, two things worth celebrating everywhere but at UCLA where fans are known to expect a national championship every year. "We're going to sneak up on a lot of teams," Gordon said. "People are going to take their eyes off of us and we're not going to be under the microscope, but I think we're going to come up and surprise some people."
