LOS ANGELES – There were two distinct schools of thought on UCLA’s designation as a No. 4 seed when the NCAA Tournament committee released a preliminary bracket on Saturday.
“Brackets don’t matter right now,” UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball said after the Bruins’ 78-60 win over Oregon State on Sunday.
UCLA coach Steve Alford had a more verbose answer regarding the tournament committee slotting his team 15th in the country – UCLA is No. 10 in the Associated Press poll.
The committee rated the Bruins (23-3, 10-3 Pac-12) seven spots behind Oregon, which it defeated on Thursday, and three behind Kentucky, which UCLA defeated Dec. 3 at Rupp Arena.
“I wish we could control that other than win games,” Alford said. “Going into that we were 22-3 with wins over Kentucky at their place, who was ahead of us, and at least two other teams in there that hadn’t won two top-5 games.”
Kentucky was No. 1 in the country when UCLA defeated it in the Bruins’ first true road game of the season. Oregon was No. 5 when UCLA beat it on Thursday to earn a split this season with the Ducks, who won in Eugene on Dec. 28 on a last-second 3-pointer.
Alford seemed well aware his team has lost some of the luster that made it the No. 2 team in the country and kept it in the top 5 for seven consecutive weeks this season.
UCLA, which has been ranked outside the AP top 10 for just one of the past nine weeks, figures to move up from No. 10 in Monday’s poll after losses by four teams ranked higher.
Alford not only cited the weight of his team’s best victories, but the strength of the three opponents to which UCLA suffered losses.
“You look at our losses, we lost at Oregon and we lost at USC, who I think is a very good basketball team, won over 20 games already,” he said. “We lost to Arizona at home, who is a top 10 team. So I like what we’ve done. We’ve just got to continue to work. If anything, it’s motivation for our guys.”
Saturday was the first time in the history of the NCAA Tournament committee that a preliminary bracket has been released before Selection Sunday, which is March 12 this year.
UCLA has five games remaining, including a home game on Saturday against USC and a road game Feb. 25 at Arizona, which was rated ninth by the tournament committee.
“Those 16 teams that you see, there will be teams on Selection Sunday not in there along those lines,” Alford said. “There will be guys on the third and fourth line that could move up, could move out. There’s so much basketball to be played in the next three to four weeks before we get to that point.”
Contact the writer: cfowler@scng.com
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