Hilltoppers want UCLA to run with them

PHOENIX — For the past three years, Western Kentucky’s players could only watch as other small schools with high seeds made their magical runs through the NCAA Tournament.

They wondered whether their dance cards would ever be punched, whether they too could become a Cinderella.

“You just sit at home and just wish that you had a chance to be in that game,” senior guard Courtney Lee said.

Now, as one of only two No. 12 seeds left in the field of 16, Western is doing more than just wishing.

But if the Toppers want to keep dancing this week at the U.S. Airways Center, they’re going to have to speed up the tempo against a disciplined UCLA defense that has held its first two tournament opponents to a combined 78 points.

In 20 games this season, the Bruins (33-3) have held opponents to fewer than 60 points and are undefeated in those games.

Western doesn’t want to be another team handcuffed by the Bruins’ defense, which is ranked among the nation’s best and is holding opponents to 58 points a game.

Amid all of the hocus pocus of being this year’s NCAA Tournament Cinderella story, the Toppers know they have to stick to their plan.

“We’ve got to impose our will,” senior guard Tyrone Brazelton said Wednesday at a news conference. “We’ve got to do what we do best: push the ball and keep the game at our pace.”

Pace will be pivotal for the top-seeded Bruins, who have won 12 straight and have advanced to the Final Four the past two seasons.

“We don’t want them to run up and down on us from a defensive standpoint, and they’re very capable of running the ball,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said. “They really push it. They run the floor. They fill the lane. So we’ve got to do a good job in transition of getting back.”

Teams have tried to keep Western from running and gunning this season, but the Toppers (29-6) can’t focus on what other teams are doing.

“The danger in those games is that you fall into that and you quit running yourself,” Coach Darrin Horn said. “Sometimes if you’re not careful, you are ... not running when you could and you are not attacking when you could be attacking.”

That attacking has to be led by Lee and Brazelton, who combined to score 44 of Western’s 72 points in a win over San Diego. Defense also will be key. In the win over San Diego, Western Kentucky forced 17 turnovers, grabbed a season-high 13 steals and blocked six shots.

“They got us out of our comfort zone and kind of sped us up a little bit,” San Diego star Gyno Pomare said after the loss last week in Tampa, Fla. “They sped it up too much.”

That’s what Horn would like to do to the Bruins, but it isn’t mandatory to do it for 40 minutes, said the coach whose team is in its first Sweet 16 since 1993.

“I knew we were getting good when we were winning games when we didn’t ... have to score 75 or 80 to win,” he said. “I think we’ve shown we can do that for stretches.”

Howland said he has been impressed by the Western team he has watched on video the past few days. He said the Toppers are carrying a swift momentum into the West Region semifinals.

“Any team that’s left in this tournament right now can beat anybody,” he said. “If we don’t play our very best tomorrow, it will be our last game of the year.”

All Western’s players know is that they don’t want Thursday’s game to be their last.

They don’t want to be back home in Bowling Green watching the rest of the NCAA Tournament on television as they have the last few years.

They want to keep their Cinderella story going.

“To have it come true our senior year is a phenomenal feeling,” Lee said. “Being labeled a Cinderella team definitely helps. We are just going in and having fun.”