<p>The UCLA basketball team's last "easy" 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/> "They came in here very patient, holding till the last 10 seconds of the shot clock,? coach Ben Howland said. "I'm just glad we got the win. Now we've got 20 straight games in a row that are going to be all very difficult."
<br/> Reports of this season'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'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't relinquish but had a hard time expanding.
<br/> "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," said sophomore point guard Darren Collison, who finished the game with 11 points and nine assists. "We're playing good teams coming up, so we have to pick up the intensity."<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/> "If we didn?t make our foul shots in the first half, we would have been down or tied at halftime," Howland said. "Our foul-shooting was good tonight. That was a real positive."<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' fast-break opportunities by running their offense without taking a shot until the final seconds on the shot clock ticked.<br/> "I think it's a good experience," Shipp said. "We're going to have to play teams that slow it down. It's going to help us in the long run."<br/> As the Bruins get ready to face an 11-1 Michigan team Saturday, they will have owned the nation'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/> "At times (we're playing like the No. 1 team), at times not," Collison said. ?It's part of the game. Everything's not going to work out the way we want it to work. We'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."</p>