Basketball Update I: Collison, Roll are day to day

UCLA head basketball Coach Ben Howland said that guards Darren Collison and Michael Roll are recovering, but almost . . . not yet . . . might be ready to play soon.

Collison has not been suffering any pain in his left knee, and Roll and forward James Keefe (recovering from shoulder surgery) have been participating in non-contact drills.

Howland felt Collison is close to returning, but that the final decision is up to the player. "For him, the biggest thing is just gaining confidence in [the knee]," said Howland. "And also, that brace restricts you a little bit. It’s just not as mobile as you would like, but I think each day he gets more and more confidence. I don’t decide, nor do the doctors or trainers. It’s when that kid is able to come back based on if he has any pain, which he’s not; he’s been through all the different tests. It’s still a comfort thing. Hopefully, he’s getting closer."

Asked about how the players will react to a change in the number of minutes available once all three injured Bruins return, Howland saw a positive: "Once Darren does get back, we will be able to rest the guys who are playing more minutes than I would like them to play. I don’t think it’s ideal to play a guy 40 minutes or 36 minutes a game. So Russell [Westbrook]’s minutes will hopefully be less than that and that will actually help him perform better. Same thing with Luc [Richard Mbah A Moute] and same thing with Josh [Shipp]. I would ideally like it so that no one plays more than 30 minutes a game, because I think you get a diminishing return when you get past a certain amount of minutes and not enough rest when you’re playing as hard as [Westbrook] plays.

"What makes it really difficult is where we improve is in practice and we haven’t been able to have the type of practices yet I would like to have because we’ve been injured. We’ve had 10 scholarship players healthy for practice since the first day of practice, twice. That’s hard."

Forward Alfred Aboya has been fitted with protective goggles after suffering a fracture of the floor of his right-eye socket, but is expected to be available for tomorrow night’s game against George Washington in Pauley Pavilion. "Alfred is extremely tough," Howland said. "His biggest question to me on Sunday night when I called him to see how he was doing was,'Can I practice tomorrow?’ Alfred is a real warrior."

About 2-1 George Washington, Howland said, "They’ve got some talent. We’re going to have to play well tomorrow. Two years ago, they were 27-3 and last year they were 23-9. It’s a very good program."

Unlike some of UCLA’s non-conference opponents, there’s no special relationship with GWU or its coach or a West Coast tour that suggested the matchup. The Colonials are coming 2,700 miles to play UCLA, Howland said, "because they were interested in coming out and playing us and they’re a good program and a good team to play against."

Ben Howland photo courtesy of UCLA.