UCLA's Fast-Paced Offense Outpaced

There is no team in the major conferences that plays a slower tempo than Washington State. Heck, there is only one team nationally that plays a slower tempo than the Cougars. UCLA has been experimenting with playing faster, despite coach Ben Howland's general tendencies, and up until recently it had been effective.

As much as anything, though, the speed advantage isn't everything; the UCLA defense still had to do enough. That came to a crashing thud against Washington State. UCLA did force the Cougars to play at a much faster tempo than they are comfortable, but Washington State came away with a 82-81 win at Pauley Pavilion.

Washington State senior guard Taylor Rochestie, a native of Santa Barbara, killed the Bruins with a career high 33 points. He and his teammates just picked apart the UCLA defense with 30-for-51 shooting, including just over 50 percent from the perimeter.

This was a big setback to UCLA after knocking off Washington on Thursday night. It keeps the Bruins at least a game back of the Huskies. It also has UCLA losing three of four late in the season. UCLA has been letting its defense lapse in the last week while it has accelerated its tempo. Given Ben Howland's preference for defense-first teams, this has to be galling. Expect UCLA to be slowing things down until the team starts playing defense.

For Washington State, aside from getting a nice win and showing that they are still dangerous, it puts the Cougars over .500 with three games left. While not easy with games against Arizona and Arizona State before finishing at Washington, it gives Washington State at finishing the season with a winning record and a chance to at least go to the NIT in a rebuilding year.