LOS ANGELES — Will McClendon knows it is practically now or never for the UCLA men’s basketball team.
“I think it’s also the elephant in the room that the season is almost over,” McClendon said. “And there’s not a lot of room for error anymore so we’re trying to get in and get better for sure.”
The 6-foot-3 sophomore guard, who shoots a team-high 38.8% from 3-point range while averaging 4.6 points in 21.1 minutes per game as the team’s sixth man, believes the Bruins still have the potential to lock into a higher level of focus.
“We have to be more mature,” McClendon said. “It’s time to do that. There’s no room for any excuses, no room for error. We just have to come together as a team … we’ve been together for a long time now, there’s no more excuses now. We just have to stay focused and we have to really lock in and zone in on what the coaches have in store for us.”
McClendon said success in college basketball is rooted in sacrifice.
“That should be throughout the whole year, you give up stuff to improve your game,” McClendon said. “I think we’ve been doing a good job, even as a team, time-managing what we have to do outside of the court and on the court. But we have all have to be in the gym a little more. We have to focus in a little bit more, pay attention more in film (study), everything just has to enhance in a positive way for us to go where we want to go.”
UCLA coach Mick Cornin said he will remain steadfast in his game-by-game approach.
“All I care about is practice today and when the season is over, then I have to care about roster construction, meeting with players, putting our team together for next year and coming to work and getting whatever the job to get done that day is that day, Cronin said. “You can’t look at the totality of things because then you’ll waste your day, whatever it may be. And the sad thing is we could also play to April, but you didn’t mention that because of…
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