Thursday practice report: 'Winning is all about defense'

Uclablogpixmbahamoute_lucricharda30 UCLA junior forward Luc Richard Mbah A Moute had barely been told that he was on the Naismith Trophy preseason watch list when he spoke to reporters by telephone this afternoon.

"If it’s true, it’s an honor," he said. "It’s a reward for all your hard work and for how good your team is, because all that stuff is based on how good your team is. It doesn’t matter right now . . . the only thing that matters is our team and what we do. If we do the right thing, all the little awards that come should not only be for me, but for everyone on the team."

Mbah A Moute said his knees feel fine, but won’t know if he is over last season’s troubles until he’s back to playing in actual games again. He’s also aware that with the addition of Kevin Love, the Bruins could play at a faster tempo this season, but he knows where that will start: defense.

"We definitely want to get out and run," he said, "but all that is created by our defense. We want to establish our defense so we can create turnovers and get out and run."

Reflecting on a comment by Bruin Coach Ben Howland that Mbah A Moute could defend all five positions on the court, he was asked if he could defend a point guard: "I played point guard in high school, so I could definitely guard a point guard. That’s something I’m really proud of is my defense. Winning is all about defense. Most of the coaches I’ve had have put a big emphasis on defense. When you play defense, it creates your offense. I just like doing that.

"I can play point guard, if Coach Howland is willing to do that. I have no problem doing that." That would be something to see.

Sophomore forward James Keefe is continuing his recovery from shoulder surgery, and is making good progress.

"I met with the doctor," he said, "and she says I’m on course. Now I’ve got my full range [of motion], and now I’m getting in shape — running, shooting and getting the strength back in the shoulder so I don’t tweak it again. It’s hard, but I know when I come back, it’ll be fine. One day at a time.

"Right now, in practice, I go through warmups before practice. I’ll meet with the strength and conditioning coach. He’ll put me through a workout with running, sliding, some plyometrics, and then during practice I just work on my rehab, strengthening of the shoulder. I can shoot some; I do shooting drills after practice.

He said that building up his strength "will be the hard part, since I still can’t lift with the upper body. It will take some time to rebuild all my upper-body strength. Once that happens, I’ll be fine."

Howland said that "Lorenzo Mata did not practice today. He sprained his ankle yesterday; the same foot as before, but not the same sprain. It was X-rayed and X-rays were negative; he’ll probably not practice tomorrow and will either be back on Saturday or when we practice again on Monday. We’ll just have to wait and see.

"It’s more the ankle and less of the foot. He actually stepped on Alfred [Aboya]’s foot, and so he tweaked it. It happens, especially around the basket."

With the first exhibition game coming up a week from Friday, Howland’s front court is thin, with Love, Mbah A Moute, Aboya and Josh Shipp available, but possibly also an opening for sophomore Nikola Dragovic and freshman Chace Stanback to get some extra minutes to show what they can do.

Luc Richard Mbah A Moute photo courtesy of UCLA