Darren Collison: Not a Good Time to Play Worst Game of Career

As we all know, UCLA reached its third consecutive Final Four appearance this year. Led by players such as Josh Shipp and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute who have experienced both of the two previous losses, we would think that the juniors and seniors on the team would finally step up to the challenge this time around and beat the “us against the world” Memphis team. But for the Bruins, the true team leader is Darren Collison. Having played a significant part in both of the losses to Florida (he played a total of 57 out of 80 minutes), he should have been poised and ready to finally lead his team to its first championship since 1995. Collison himself even said, “Third year, right now it’s just about winning.

Unfortunately, Collison proved to grossly underachieve for the team that he and Kevin Love have carried through so much of the season. After the magnificent come from behind win against Texas A&M in the second round, led by 21 points and two late field goals from Collison, he was expected to be the one who would finally shut down Derrick Rose and also at least score a few baskets on the offensive end. Unfortunately, Darren Collison had by far his worst game of the year against Memphis, and arguably the worst game he’s ever had since acquiring the starting job from now Laker, Jordan Farmar. In 33 minutes of playing time, he managed to produce 2 points on 1 of 9 shooting (his worst single-game shooting percentage ever, minimum 6 shots), he had 5 turnovers, and he also fouled out with about three minutes left.

Ironically, UCLA was at its best on defense when Collison was on the bench, because they were more easily able to match up with the bigger Memphis team on the defensive end. With Collison out of the game, Westbrook was able to guard Rose, and the 6′8″ Mbah a Moute covered the similarly sized Chris Douglas-Roberts. When Collison was benched in the middle of the second half, UCLA was able to lessen their deficit to 13 points. But, when he came back into the game, the Bruins went scoreless for over four minutes until he fouled out, and by then the game was out of reach for good.

When asked about the game afterwards, Collison replied, “We knew they were very good, but we thought with our defensive ability, we were going to cause a little havoc. Unfortunately, things didn’t go that way.” Either Collison overestimated his team’s defensive ability, or they all just played a terrible game on D. Maybe if he had played a little harder and realized that his offensive game wasn’t working, Collison could have focused less on pointless transition offense and more on his defensive play.

The only thing that remains now for Collison is to decide is if he will leave UCLA early and enter the upcoming NBA draft. All he has said about the opportunity is that, “It’s too soon. I haven’t given any thought to the future yet.” He might as well get out of UCLA as soon as possible, seeing that he doesn’t want to keep getting his heart broken in miserable Final Four losses. Because it certainly does not appear that UCLA will be winning a title any time soon, Ben Howland or not.