Weekend Warm-up: Hoop-de-doo!

A thin schedule for the pre-New Year’s Weekend with just three Bruin events on the calendar, all basketball games:

Men’s Basketball:

Ben Howland’s fifth-ranked Bruins (11-1) will finish their non-conference schedule with a Saturday afternoon match against UC Davis in Pauley Pavilion at 4:30 p.m. The Aggies are 5-6 and 0-5 on the road, averaging 66.9 points a game while giving up 67.9. The game will be telecast on FSN Prime Ticket and on the radio at KLAC AM 570 with Chris Roberts on play-by-play. The Bruins will open conference play with a tough road trip to the Bay Area on January 3 (at Stanford) and January 5 (at California).

Women’s Basketball:

After a 4-0 start, UCLA has dropped six of its last seven games. Conference play begins tonight with UCLA at Arizona State (6:30 p.m. Mountain time), also a disappointment at 6-5 after being projected near the top of the conference this season. The game will be audiocast live at uclabruins.com with Dave Marcus on the play-by-play and Jamila Veasley as analyst. The Bruins will then move on to Tucson on Sunday to take on Arizona (also 6-5 going into tonight’s game with USC). That game will also be available live online with tipoff at 2 p.m. Mountain time.

Even with the team’s slide, senior forward Lindsay Pluimer (pictured) has continued to shine, leading the lead in scoring at 14.5 points per game and rebounds at 7.7 a game. That’s a career high for her in rebounds and only 1.0 points less than her career-best scoring average last season.