The next game on the schedule is a matchup against Oregon State tonight at Pauley Pavilion.

Yet for the UCLA men’s basketball team, much of the talk this week has been about last Saturday’s dismal performance against Washington on national television.

The Bruins watched the game on film – a standard activity – and there were a number of issues that stood out.

There were the two UCLA turnovers with the Bruins trailing by just six points in the first half that led to easy Washington baskets.

“The thing just snowballed from there,” coach Ben Howland said.

There was the inability of the Bruins’ zone defense to stop Washington senior forward Quincy Pondexter or sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas.

But perhaps most importantly of all, there was a hint of a lack of effort on the part of the Bruins as the game got progressively worse.

“If you look at that game against Washington State, they just stopped playing,” redshirt junior guard Mustafa Abdul-Hamid said. “And if you look at our game against Washington, there were moments in which we looked like we stopped playing. They performed. I don’t want to take any credit away from them, but I don’t think they’re 30 points better than us.”

Freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt had a similar take on it. After coming off a 20-point win over Washington State two days before, in addition to the fact that the Bruins defeated Washington earlier this season, Honeycutt said he believes that there might have been a sense of complacency.

“Maybe our heads kind of got big after the 20-point (win),” Honeycutt said. “We got some confidence and then going into the Washington game, I know maybe some guys – I can’t speak for everybody – but maybe some guys (thought), ‘We beat them before, they’re not all that good.’ But they came out with their A-game.”

The Bruins cannot afford a similar performance tonight against Oregon State, a team that the Bruins defeated once before this season, but that also has a few impressive wins to its resume. Last Thursday, Oregon State beat Cal by 16 points.

On Jan. 14, the Beavers defeated Arizona, a team that defeated the Bruins the first week of Pac-10 play.

Howland expects Oregon State to play a combination of a one-three-one trapping zone, a traditional two-three zone and matchup at the end of possessions.

“It’s a tough matchup because they work on (their one-three-one zone defense) every day so trying to simulate that, you’re not going to do quite as well as they do because that’s what they do on a daily basis,” Howland said.

The Bruins were dealt an unexpected blow on Monday when freshman forward Reeves Nelson had to undergo laser retinopexy to repair a slight tear in his left eye. On Wednesday it was announced that Nelson was not medically cleared to play in either game this week and would be reevaluated early next week.

To make matters worse for the Bruins, especially in the frontcourt, freshman forward Brendan Lane sprained his ankle in practice on Tuesday and is a game-time decision tonight.

“It’s kind of been what this year’s been for us,” Abdul-Hamid said. “Guys getting battered around and the team getting battered around, but I think this team has some character.”

Should the Bruins win both games this weekend, they would even their record at .500. Despite the fact that both Oregon State and Oregon are in the bottom half of the Pac-10 standings, Honeycutt cautioned against feeling content.

“Sometimes when we get a few wins under our belt we kind of get lackadaisical and kind of take it for granted,” Honeycutt said. “But it just shows you how well the teams are out there, that we have to bring our A-game every day.”