Trying to defend bruising Washington center Jon Brockman while healthy is a big enough chore, but UCLA's Alfred Aboya likely will have to do it while trying to recover from a flu bug that kept him from eating for three days.

Although Aboya remained non-committal about playing in Thursday's showdown with Pacific-10 Conference-leading Washington at Pauley Pavilion, his teammates figure there is no way the senior center will miss the game. But his strength and fitness level figure to be questionable.

Aboya said he had not eaten since Saturday, and added he did not leave his home Sunday or Monday.

"Right now I just want to get back to my full strength," said Aboya, who was not expected to practice Tuesday. "I hope

No. 20 UCLA (19-6, 8-4 Pac-10) needs to beat No. 22 Washington (19-6, 10-3) to remain within striking distance for the conference title, and having to face the 6-foot-7, 260-pound Brockman without Aboya would make it an extremely difficult proposition.

"We're going to need his intensity that he's been bringing all year long," UCLA point guard Darren Collison said. "He's going to play."

What would it be like trying to contain Brockman without Aboya playing?

"Ooomph," Collison said. "It would be very tough."

Brockman is a candidate to be the Pac-10's Player of the Year. He is averaging 14.9 points per game and is second in the league in rebounding (11.1 rpg).

If Aboya cannot play, or if he is ineffective, freshmen Drew Gordon and J'mison Morgan could see a dramatic increase in minutes. Gordon is averaging 11.2 minutes per game, and in 11 minutes in a loss to Washington last month he committed four fouls. Morgan did not play during last weekend's Arizona trip, but he was healthy.

The flu bug hit the Bruins last week when power forward Nikola Dragovic and Collison were affected, but neither was as sick as Aboya, who said all he ingested for three days was ginger ale.

"He had severe vomiting and also diarrhea, and couldn't eat," Howland said. "This is different. They didn't have the same symptoms. The gymnastics team went to Arizona, ironically, and came back and they got sick, more like what Alfred's experiencing now."

Foul woes

Bruins freshmen Jrue Holiday and Gordon each said this season they were frustrated about not getting calls from the officials, and Holiday said the theme moved to practice.

"We do foul and don't get calls because that's the way it is in the game," Holiday said. "We do complain about it, but the reality is, and coach (Howland) says it, you don't get that call in the game so why are you complaining about it now? And he's completely right.

"So every time we go in and we get fouled, we don't expect a call, or a whistle blown, because that's just the way it is."

Late to bed

Following last week's loss to Arizona State, Howland said Collison was up until 4a.m. thinking about it.

"You don't want to lose a game," Collison said. "Being competitive, that's all you talk about."