UCLA Men's Basketball Schedules Makeup Games Versus Arizona State, Washington
It won't take the Bruins long to get their shot at revenge against the Sun Devils.
The Pac-12 has penciled in new dates for several previously postponed games, pitting No. 12 UCLA men's basketball (16-4, 8-3 Pac-12) against Arizona State (7-13, 3-7) on Feb. 21 and matching them up with Washington (12-9, 7-4) on Feb. 28. The game between the Bruins and Sun Devils will take place at Pauley Pavilion, while the blue and gold will have to travel up to Seattle for their game against the Huskies.
UCLA and Arizona State were supposed to start their season series on Jan. 1, but because of a COVID-19 outbreak across the Bruins' roster and coaching staff, the game was pushed to Jan. 5. Then it was the Sun Devils who faced health and safety protocols, delaying the game yet again to an undetermined date.
As a result, this past Saturday's showdown marked UCLA and Arizona State's first matchup of the year down in Tempe. The Bruins came into the contest ranked No. 3 in the country while the Sun Devils had lost six out of seven, but the home underdogs triumphed 87-84 and got their fans to storm the court, knocking UCLA all the way down to No. 12 in the AP Poll and a tie for second in the Pac-12 standings.
That puts the Bruins in the lowest spot they've been in all season, a sharp change in direction from their six-game winning streak entering last week. After some hiccups early in January, still coming off a 26-day COVID hiatus, UCLA had asserted itself as one of the top teams in both the standings and advanced analytics.
Nearly a dozen COVID cases within the Bruins' program is what sparked that four-week break over the holidays, but they had actually encountered issues with the virus before coach Mick Cronin tested positive on Dec. 15.
UCLA and Washington were scheduled to play Dec. 5, but the Huskies had positive tests earlier in the week that knocked the game off the schedule. The Bruins turned the cancellation into a 10-day break leading up to their road trip to Marquette, which they converted into a win before returning to Westwood and coming down with COVID issues of their own.
That's when games versus Alabama State, North Carolina and Cal Poly were called off, and early conference season contests against Arizona, Arizona State and Stanford were postponed as well.
UCLA has already played one makeup game from that period, its home game against the Wildcats back on Jan. 25. The next makeup is scheduled for Tuesday night on the road versus the Cardinal. With so many moving parts, the Bruins wound up playing five games in 10 days to end January, and now they'll have a stretch of six games in 12 days to wrap up February.
The matchup with the Sun Devils did not fit into a one-game week, giving UCLA three games in a long weekend to open that stretch, followed by another three-game weekend with a road trip to Oregon, Oregon State and now Washington. The game against the Huskies fit in before the Bruins' rivalry game-week, though, so they'll still have five days between then and their regular season finale against USC.
The newly-scheduled game between UCLA and Arizona State will tip off from Pauley Pavilion at 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 21, and it will be televised on FS1 as was initially intended. The game between UCLA and Washington, meanwhile, has moved to 8 p.m. on ESPN2, despite the December matchup being scheduled to air on Pac-12 Networks at the time.
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