As the calendar has turned to 2012, the time has come for the UCLA Bruins to start looking to March.
That's March 7-10 to be exact.
If the Bruins don't achieve the ultimate level of success during that time span, head coach Ben Howland believes they won't be invited to March's most pristine of tournaments.
"What we're going to have to do to make the (NCAA) tournament is win the Pac-12 tournament. That's very clear," said Howland.
A finish at the top of the Pac-12 regular season standings?
"No, not with our RPI right now," he said.
The Bruins have an RPI of 138, which is the ninth lowest in the Pac-12, as they head into their next conference game against Arizona at Honda Center on Thursday, also dubbed the Wooden Classic.
A schedule loaded with the Eastern Washington's and UC Davis' — the latter of which ranks last in the country with an RPI of 344 — of the world doesn't exactly do wonders for the RPI.
The feeling that UCLA has to win the Pac-12 Conference Tournament is something that has resonated with the team.
"That's been on my mind from the beginning. After you lose all the games that we've lost and you haven't (won) those big games that you needed to get into the (NCAA) tournament, we know that we got to win Pac-12," said Lazeric Jones.
The previous two losses have the Bruins starting 0-2 in conference for the first time since 1987-88.
UCLA is coming off of a tough conference-opening road trip in Northern California that saw them lose by one at Stanford last Thursday and get outclassed in second half by Cal on Saturday.
Despite losing at Stanford by a narrow margin, it was the Cal loss that was tougher to take for the Bruins.
"The way the second half went against Cal, it was tough," said Tyler Lamb, who finished with a career-high 26 points in the loss at Cal. "That's just how basketball goes sometimes. They came out in the second half very hot. They knocked down all open shots. They knocked tough shots also and they stopped us on the other end."
The mistakes from the most recent road trip are correctable and Howland will look to get it fixed in preparation for the Arizona schools this weekend.
"We've got to execute better at the offensive end and do a good job at getting back in transition defense," said Howland. "Our transition defense at times against Cal was not very good and that's one of the biggest things that Arizona does, they just push it at you — make or miss — the just really come at you."
The Bruins also lost the rebounding margin in both games. UCLA is 2-5 when getting outrebounded this season.
