No. 5 UCLA has no problem with Chaminade in Hawaii

Nov 22, 2006, 06:19 pm

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) -- UCLA coach Ben Howland was happy looking at a couple of columns on the stat sheet after the fifth-ranked Bruins' 88-63 victory over Chaminade on Monday night in the opening round of the EA Sports Maui Invitational.

The points obviously pleased him, but so did the minutes.

"I'm happy we got out without having to play any of the starters more than 30 minutes with three games in three days," Howland said.

Game No. 2 will be in the semifinals on Tuesday night against No. 20 Kentucky, which beat DePaul 87-81. Again, time was on Howland's mind.

"Overall this was a good win, but we have to get ready to face a very tough opponent in 20 hours," he said, looking at his watch. "No. Nineteen hours, 55 minutes."

It will be a matchup of two schools with a combined 18 national championships -- a record 11 by UCLA.

Arron Afflalo scored 11 of his 25 points during UCLA's game-opening 17-2 run.

Afflalo hit three 3-pointers in the early run and the Bruins (2-0) were never threatened by the Division II Silverswords (0-1), the hosts of the eight-team tournament.

The 6-foot-5 junior guard finished two points off his career high set last February against Arizona. He was 10-for-14 from the field, including 5-for-7 from 3-point range.

Afflalo, sitting with a bag of ice on his right knee, wasn't overly concerned about the short turnaround.

"That's what this tournament is about. You have to show the heart a team has," he said. "I'm looking forward to it. Kentucky's a great team."

UCLA led 43-20 at halftime and the Bruins' biggest lead was 56-26 on two free throws by Josh Shipp with 16:08 to play.

Zack Whiting had 14 points and 10 assists for Chaminade, which is 4-61 in the tournament's 22 years. Darrell Birton was 4-for-5 on 3s and had 12 points for the Silverswords, whose last tournament win was over Villanova in the opening round in 2003.

"As usual in this tournament we were playing one of the top teams in the country," Chaminade coach Matt Mahar said. "I think we wore down a bit but we came on strong for a few minutes in the second half, which was definitely promising."

Shipp had 16 points and Darren Collison added 15 for UCLA, which returned two starters from the team that lost to Florida in the national championship game last April.

UCLA shot 51.5 percent (17-for-33) in the first half while holding the Silverswords to 33.3 percent (8-for-24) and forcing 12 turnovers, which the Bruins converted into 18 points.

The Silverswords got to 58-41 with 11:17 to play on a free throw by Dan Wendt. Collison then hit two 3-pointers and scored after stealing an inbounds pass to account for all the points in an 8-2 run that made it 66-43 with 10 minutes left. Chaminade was never closer than 20 points the rest of the way.

"I was feeling comfortable for a minute with a 30-point lead, but they cut it to 17," Howland said. "I thought Chaminade was a feisty team."

Whiting said the Silverswords had a good game in the second half so "we got something positive out of it."

This is UCLA's third appearance in the Maui Invitational. The Bruins finished sixth in 1995 as defending national champions and were third in 2001.