Love: 'As long as we believe we can win, I think we’ll be fine'

UCLA’s freshman center Kevin Love told reporters on a conference call today that despite Memphis being favored over the Bruins in Saturday’s national semifinal, "As long as we believe we can win, I think we’ll be fine.

"We’ve been in games this year when we’ve been down, we’ve been in games that we’ve been up and we’ve been in tight games as well. We’ve done pretty good. If that’s the case, then that will give us a little extra bit of incentive. We know that Memphis is a very good team, just watching them yesterday, the way they get up and down the floor, and they’re very long. They push it, so we’re going to have to get back in transition if we’re going to contain them.

"They’re very unique. I think [John] Calipari, their coach, mentioned that they’re kind of like Princeton on steroids a little bit, so they’re going to be very tough to defend. I don’t think there is as team as athletic as them in the country, tell you the truth. It’s going to be a tough game for us, but we’re just going to have to play our style of ball and hopefully it will work out for us.

"[Joey] Dorsey, I know he likes to jump, he likes to block shots, so we’ll see what happens. He can really run the floor well. They’re long. They’re athletic, they go for every, every rebound, so hopefully that will help us on the fast break, but they’re also fast as well, they get out. Everybody runs the floor and they really pound it on the defensive end as well, trying to get all over the players that they are guarding, and hopefully our guards will be able to handle the pressure.

"Chris Douglas-Roberts probably forces the biggest match-up problem with us. He’s 6-5, 6-6, he’s very athletic, he’s unorthodox, he uses his left hand a lot, his right hand a lot, he does so many different things, he’s ambidextrous. He causes a lot of match-up problems for us.

"We’re going to have to scheme for them in different ways because they’re no joke, just every team that’s left, every team is here for a reason, all No. 1 seeds."

More highlights:

>> Asked about what he expects from his first Final Four, Love said "The coaches and players on the team are telling me what to expect, but they all said it’s a lot of fun. There’s a lot of different basketball obligations, media obligations and certain people that are going to want to try to talk to you, but it’s all about keeping it in the family, keeping it in the UCLA program and just keeping a steady head and trying to stay away from as many distractions as possible and just focus on the game ahead of you."

>> Love reflected on the changes he’s going through since he came to UCLA last fall, noting, "At the beginning of the year, everybody asked the same question: what kind of adjustment period is there going to be as far as basketball, schoolwise.  Everybody asked about that, but nobody asked about the conditioning aspect and that was a big thing, especially for big men, because we have guards here and usually most of the guards in college basketball can run for days, can wake up, eat hamburgers, cheeseburgers and fries every day and be fine running out there and playing big minutes. I’m not saying I ate that stuff, but I had to adjust in different ways.

"I feel like I didn’t know, 100%, what to expect from the rigors of the college basketball prospectus and having to deal with school and weightlifting and sleep deprivation. It was tough, I don’t know if it could have been more prepared, but throughout the season, I had to switch off my eating habits –- it was never about what I ate -– it was just when I ate it. That was the biggest thing for me. I feel like I’ve done a great job getting into better shape, and I played 38 minutes on Thursday, which is the most I’ve played all season, and came back on Saturday and felt great. So that’s just an outcome from using by body well.

"There was a lot of stuff that I had to learn. I remember looking at film about two weeks ago, it was from one of our first games –- it might have been the San Bernardino game -– all the way back 'til then, and watching me play defense and playing defense now, there is such a difference. I mentioned in the locker room after Saturday’s game that against Texas, I only played 22 minutes, because at that time I wasn’t playing my best defense and Lorenzo [Mata-Real] had been here for 3 1/2, four years now. I feel like I am doing a lot better job and rotating, hedging and the other stuff that has made be a better defender now.

"I didn’t make much defense in high school, I just kind of stood around and waited for rebounds and got four, five  blocks a game, but other than that I wasn’t out 20 feet from the basket trying to defend, but I’ve gotten a lot better."

>> He also endorsed his UCLA basketball experience, saying, "I would definitely recommend it, especially to a player who wants to get better, especially on the defensive end. I knew coming in that’s  what I was going to have to get better at and I had mentioned that since day one. It was a big learning curve for me and there was a lot of extra work, but I think I grew from it and just kept an open mind, open arms and just kept my ears open and listened to the coaches.

>> On being named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press, Love said, "This ranks up there with the best because it’s such a prestigious honor, to be mentioned right up there in the same breath as [Tyler] Hansbrough, Mike Beasley and all the players that were on it. It really feels great."