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By SCOTT M. REID
Maybe if they had to fly a Buddy Holly special into Pullman, Wash., in February they would understand. Or spend a Saturday afternoon on the opponents' bench in Eugene, Ore., or Tucson.
But like so many things about the Pac-12, three time zones from the 9-mile trek between the Dean Smith Center and Cameron Indoor Stadium, much of the rest of the nation doesn't fully appreciate how hard it is to play on the road in the Pac-12.
"Yeah, they do and they don't understand it," said UCLA coach Ben Howland, who coached at Pittsburgh in the Big East. "They don't understand the travel, you know in the Big East Philadelphia to D.C. to New York is not that far. Here you're going from Washington to Arizona. It's a long way. That plays into it and then how we play our games where we're playing Thursday night and Saturday afternoon. That is really rare in any of the other BCS conferences. It doesn't happen very often. You might get that once a year."
In the Pac-12, teams face the short turnaround four times in conference play.
This season the road has been particularly inhospitable to visitors. Road teams are a combined 9-23 so far in conference play, which is bad news for UCLA (10-7, 3-2 Pac-12) as it tries to play its way back into the Pac-12 race.
"Road has been tough for a lot of Pac-12 teams so we definitely have to get some road wins to be in the top of the conference," UCLA guard Lazeric Jones said.
And the Bruins are going to have to do so on two of the roughest road trips in the conference.
Beginning with tonight's stop at Oregon State, the Bruins play four of their next six games away from Los Angeles. UCLA takes on Oregon on Saturday at Matt Court, which might have better plumbing than its predecessor, Mac Court, but remains mean and nasty at its core.
After a pair of home games with Utah (Jan. 26) and Colorado (Jan. 28), the Bruins head back to the Northwest for games with Washington in Seattle (Feb. 2) and two days later against Washington State in Pullman. A Bruins road loss at Washington on the final weekend of the regular season was the difference in Arizona, not UCLA, winning the Pac-10 title last season.
"Bottom line is we're going to have to get it done on the road," Bruins guard Tyler Lamb said.
UCLA and Arizona both went 5-4 on the road last season and duplicating those records this winter could be enough to secure the regular-season title.
"I think it's difficult right now because there's not any team that is setting themselves apart," UCLA guard Jerime Anderson said. "There's not too many teams that have that much more talent level than any other teams in the league. I think everyone's sort of teetering around the same area right now and we'll see how it goes."
Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
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