An injury to freshman Alfred Aboya was OK. An injury to center Michael Fey was a little concerning. An injury to forward Josh Shipp was a disappointment.
But the absence of Jordan Farmar in the Bruins’ starting lineup Tuesday night was downright alarming.
Farmar, the overwhelming leader and captain of the Bruins, missed the game with a sprained ankle after it was originally thought the point guard had a stress fracture.
Without Farmar, the Bruins looked awful in their victory two Saturdays ago against Delaware State, and again looked disappointing against Albany on Tuesday night.
UCLA let a 19-point lead disappear in six minutes and allowed the Great Danes go on a 14-0 run to end the first half.
Considering the fact that Albany became a Division I basketball team in 1999 and its leading scorer was 5-foot-9 shooting guard Jon Iati, who sat out all of last season with shoulder surgery, the win was not impressive.
If this type of performance continues, Bruin fans should shudder to think what will happen when they face Michigan on the road and Nevada in the Wooden Classic in the upcoming weeks.
UCLA players themselves have become frustrated with the lack of continuity in their lineup as of late.
“It’s not just Jordan’s injury, it’s this whole thing,” sophomore guard Arron Afflalo said. “Sometimes we expect a guy is back, then he is not back and we have a new injury.”
That has been UCLA’s problem so far. After enjoying a nearly healthy squad on their trip to New York, the Bruins came back to Los Angeles on Sunday to find Farmar injured once again.
The same thing happened when Fey was injured to begin the season, and the Bruins are yet to have all their players together on the same court.
No matter how many non-conference teams coach Ben Howland has scheduled, the Bruins have been without two of their top returning scorers, Farmar and Shipp, and that has hurt their growth as a team.
This means when the Pac-10 schedule heats up in the middle of January, the Bruins will be playing as a complete team for the first time, while the rest of the conference powers will have already spent months playing together in preparation for conference play.
This is a disconcerting thought, considering that two of UCLA’s main rivals, Washington and Arizona, are playing at the top of their games, and have already faced some of the toughest competition in the nation.
Without Farmar, the Bruins looked confused at times on Tuesday. Freshman guard Darren Collison committed traveling violations in the backcourt, and the Bruins finished with 10 turnovers in the first half.
The Bruins had no one to calm them down when Albany went on its run in the first half, and they were missing their emotional leader as they headed into halftime.
“We definitely didn’t have our intensity out there for all 40 minutes,” Afflalo said. “Its something that we have to work on, especially with Jordan out of the lineup.”
This is cause for concern for the Bruins, who have very limited scoring options without Farmar, Shipp and Aboya in the lineup.
UCLA’s margin of error has been greatly reduced, and the Bruins will need to play at the top of their game to compete with such quality teams as Nevada and Michigan.
The Bruins will need the rest of their non-conference schedule – against Coppin State, Wagner and Sacramento State – just to get accustomed to playing together, because they open Pac-10 play at home against Stanford on Dec. 29, in about a month.
Until then, the Bruins will have a tough transition, with players moving in and out of the lineup and the bulk of the schedule still ahead.
E-mail Parikh at sparikh@media.ucla.edu.