<p>The UCLA basketball team&#039;s last &#034;easy&#034; game of the season turned out not to be so easy.
<br/> Sam Houston State frustrated the No. 1 Bruins with their slow style of play in the first half and for parts of the second half.
<br/> But in the end, the No. 1 Bruins (10-0) emerged victorious over the Bearkats (6-5), 75-61.
<br/> &#034;They came in here very patient, holding till the last 10 seconds of the shot clock,? coach Ben Howland said. &#034;I&#039;m just glad we got the win. Now we&#039;ve got 20 straight games in a row that are going to be all very difficult.&#034;
<br/> Reports of this season&#039;s Bruin basketball games are starting to sound like a broken record - start off slow in the first half, wear down teams as the game goes on, and pick up a victory with a score that indicates domination.
<br/> Tuesday&#039;s game was no exception. The Bruins fell behind the Bearkats early 9-2, and it took them almost 12 minutes to claim their first lead of the game. It was a lead the Bruins didn&#039;t relinquish but had a hard time expanding.
<br/> &#034;We?ve got to take it upon ourselves to come out with better intensity in the first half and the beginning of the second half,&#034; said sophomore point guard Darren Collison, who finished the game with 11 points and nine assists. &#034;We&#039;re playing good teams coming up, so we have to pick up the intensity.&#034;
<br/> In what was a very evenly played first half, the difference in the score was free-throw shooting. The Bruins, who came into the game shooting a Pac-10 Conference-worst 59.8 percent from the line, hit 12-13 free throws in the first half.
<br/> Redshirt sophomore forward Josh Shipp had 12 first-half points and hit all six of his free-throw attempts in the first half.
<br/> For the game, UCLA finished 17-21 from the charity stripe while Sam Houston State was just 7-18.
<br/> &#034;If we didn?t make our foul shots in the first half, we would have been down or tied at halftime,&#034; Howland said. &#034;Our foul-shooting was good tonight. That was a real positive.&#034;
<br/> The Bearkats displayed a style of play throughout the game that the Bruins will likely see a lot of in Pac-10 play. The Bearkats tried to limit the Bruins&#039; fast-break opportunities by running their offense without taking a shot until the final seconds on the shot clock ticked.
<br/> &#034;I think it&#039;s a good experience,&#034; Shipp said. &#034;We&#039;re going to have to play teams that slow it down. It&#039;s going to help us in the long run.&#034;
<br/> As the Bruins get ready to face an 11-1 Michigan team Saturday, they will have owned the nation&#039;s No. 1 ranking for four weeks. UCLA knows it will have to improve its consistency if it hopes to maintain that ranking in the weeks to come.
<br/> &#034;At times (we&#039;re playing like the No. 1 team), at times not,&#034; Collison said. ?It&#039;s part of the game. Everything&#039;s not going to work out the way we want it to work. We&#039;ll be ready for Michigan like we were for Texas A&M. This Michigan game is going to be a whole new game for us.&#034;</p>

<p><b>GAME NOTES:</b> Freshman guard/forward Nikola Dragovic served the last game of his 10-game suspension Tuesday. He will be eligible to return for the Michigan game Saturday. ? Freshman forward James Keefe had a season-high five points in 10 minutes. ? The bottom rows of the UCLA student section did not come close to filling up against Sam Houston State. There appeared to be a much-lower student turnout Tuesday than at any of last season&#039;s winter break games when students had actual tickets instead of using their BruinCards to be admitted to the game.
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