Collison still not quite himself

It’s a process Darren Collison could have done without, an experiment he wishes hadn’t been necessary.

Collison, UCLA’s junior point guard, sprained his knee last month, missed five weeks of practices and games and is still figuring out how to heal his body and jump start his instincts.

After playing 26 minutes off the bench against George Washington, Collison has started twice. He played 39 minutes in a loss to Texas and 36 against Davidson, and says he is still looking for his perfect form. He is averaging 12 points a game and has 11 assists to only two turnovers in his 101 minutes in three games.

Those are numbers that wouldn’t embarrass anyone. But the 6-foot, 160-pound Collison was a preseason All-American who has the NBA as a goal. When another little guard, 6-foot, 165-pound T.J. Ford of Toronto was taken off a court on a stretcher, swatted there effortlessly by Al Horford earlier this week, it just showed how necessary it is for Collison to prove his resilience.

“It’s real tough to come back right away,� Collison said. “I realized against George Washington that I wasn’t in game shape. Mentally I thought I was ready. Physically I thought I was ready to go. But game shape? That’s hard to get back. It’s going to take me a couple more games.�

Luckily for Collison, he has a chance to do that without much fear of his team losing. The eighth-ranked Bruins (8-1) play host to Idaho State (2-6) on Saturday, then Western Illinois (3-6) and to Michigan (3-6) and play host to UC Davis (4-5) before beginning Pacific 10 Conference play at Stanford on Jan. 3.

Collison will continue to wear a brace that covers his leg from mid-calf to mid-thigh until sometime next month. “I can’t wait to take that thing off,� he said. “It’s bulky, it gets all sweaty. It makes me feel slow.�

The knee still hurts, Collison said. “When I do certain little moves, I feel it,� he said. “But for the most part it’s getting better. I’m trusting the knee more and more as I play, so now it’s just a matter of practicing hard.�

When Davidson switched to a zone defense for one play against UCLA last Saturday, Russell Westbrook played point guard, and that will happen more often, Coach Ben Howland said.

Collison is fine with that too. “I think teams have scouted me more heavily after last year,� Collison said. “They know about me coming off pick and rolls, coming off transition. So we change things up.�

Howland said UCLA’s offense against zone defenses is still a work in progress. “With Russell at the point,� Howland said, “we do a better job of keeping the zone stretched. The one possession where Davidson went zone, Russell was up high at the point, Darren was at the wing. Darren’s a better shooter and it gave us a better attack.�

Said Collison: “We’re inconsistent against zones. Some possessions we show some good things, some possessions we don’t do good things against the zones, and teams are going to stay with that defense until we improve against it.�

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Westbrook leads the Pac-10 in assists, averaging 6.1 a game, ahead of Washington State’s Taylor Rochestie (4.9). Freshman center Kevin Love is in the top 10 in five categories.

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