<p>All week long, the UCLA basketball team had plenty of questions surrounding it. <br/>Could the Bruins get up for an 11-1 Michigan team after struggling against a couple of lightly regarded teams? How would the Bruins respond in front of a packed crowd and a national television audience? Is this UCLA team really the No. 1 team in the country? <br/>The Bruins answered all the questions with one word: annihilation. <br/>No. 1 UCLA (11-0) slaughtered Michigan (11-2) 92-55 on Saturday morning in front of a rambunctious Pauley Pavilion crowd of 11,876. <br/>"We just played our best game of the year," coach Ben Howland said. "Our guys were fired up for this game." <br/>The question of whether the Bruins are the No. 1 team in the nation had come up quite a bit during the week. ESPN's Jay Bilas ranked the Bruins No. 4 behind Ohio State, North Carolina and Florida in his column on Thursday. <br/>Oakland coach Greg Kampe, whose team lost to the Bruins last Saturday, went on record saying the Bruins were not the best opponent his team has faced this year, and that he thought Michigan could beat UCLA. <br/>But on Saturday, even if Michigan shut out UCLA in the first half, they still would not have won the game; the Bruins' 56 second-half points were more than Michigan scored in the entire game. <br/>"They put a couple of articles in our locker room that gave us some motivation," redshirt sophomore forward Josh Shipp said about the team's attitude coming into the game. "(Michigan) wanted to come out and prove something against us, and we just wanted to go out and play hard and get the win." <br/>Sophomore forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute started the game off with two quick steals, and junior guard Arron Afflalo hit two 3-pointers as the Bruins opened up a quick 8-0 lead. That was a lead that just kept getting bigger as the game wore on. <br/>Mbah a Moute ended up finishing the game with seven steals, an astounding number for a power forward, and the Bruins had six players score at least eight points. Shipp and Afflalo led the team with 18 and 17 points respectively, while sophomore point guard Darren Collison had 15 points and eight assists. <br/>The 37-point margin of victory was a mark of how far the program has come its four years under Howland. <br/>In Howland's first year as coach in 2003-2004, the Bruins lost to Michigan, and UCLA had two very close victories against the Wolverines in the past two seasons. <br/>But there was nothing close about this year's game against Michigan. While the Bruins have been prone to slow starts all year, UCLA dominated Michigan from start to finish Saturday. And as good as the Bruins were in the first half, they were much better in the second half. <br/>"One thing about this team is that we're a 40-minute team," Afflalo said. "In the second half, we tend to open up the game a lot throughout the course of this season. Part of that is because in the first half, teams are well prepared for us - they've got us scouted. But to beat us, you have to do it for 40 minutes." <br/>As the Bruins beat up on Michigan for 40 minutes on Saturday, the national television audience watching could see firsthand why the Bruins have their No. 1 ranking. But as the Bruins open up Pac-10 play Thursday, there is still a lot more to prove. <br/>"I never feel like we're the No. 1 team," Collison said. "We've got to continue to get better. The No.1 (ranking) to us doesn't mean anything. We've got to go out there and win games to prove it."</p> <p><b>THE BEST CONFERENCE?:</b> Ben Howland didn't beat around the bush after Saturday's game when evaluating the state of the Pac-10 conference this season. <br/>"I'm watching more and more college basketball and I think (the Pac-10) is the best conference in the country," Howland said. "If you look top to bottom, our teams are the best. If you watched Washington play LSU, that was such a dominating performance. Arizona's playing so well, Oregon's undefeated. ? Washington State's 11-1. Our work's cut out for us." <br/>The Bruins open up Pac-10 play at home against Washington State on Thursday and take on No. 17 Washington on Dec. 31. </p><br><br><a href='; target='_blank'>;