The loudest cheers of the day from another dispirited Pauley
Pavilion crowd came when new head football coach Karl Dorrell
showed up toward the end of the first half.
And judging from the downpour of boos on head coach Steve
Lavin’s Bruins in the final seconds of an 80-65 loss to St.
John’s, the ovation was not merely for Dorrell himself.
It was also for what he represents: the excitement of another
coaching change.
The Bruins (4-7, 2-1 Pac-10) have lost four games in a row at
home. After seeming to pull things together in a road sweep of the
Washington schools a week ago, they dropped both of this
week’s contests and looked generally uninterested against the
Red Storm (8-4) before 8,503 on Saturday.
“Hopefully, this is rock bottom,” sophomore forward
Andre Patterson said.
Once again ““ in a theme that’s been repeating itself
all season ““ it wasn’t so much the loss itself but the
way it came about.
“They seemed like they wanted it a lot more in the first
half,” sophomore guard Cedric Bozeman said. “It was
like they got to every loose ball before we did.”
St. John’s had 10 steals to UCLA’s three. The Red
Storm got to the line 31 times. The Bruins? Eleven.
But most of all, UCLA looked like it couldn’t get over
Wednesday night’s home loss to USC, when they fell to the
Trojans at Pauley for the first time in 10 years.
“Some guys came in still mad and frustrated,”
Patterson said.
“We haven’t played hard for 40 minutes, and
obviously that has to change,” senior forward Jason Kapono
said.
Instead of returning to the court with resilience and renewed
fervor, the Bruins turned the ball over 17 times, on several
occasions because they simply weren’t paying attention.
“Their heart and desire and willingness are
missing,” said St. John’s senior guard Marcus Hatten,
who led all scorers with 23 points.
It came back in fits and starts for the final 20 minutes, but
the Bruins’ paltry 23 first-half points put them too far
behind too far into the game.
“We were never able to overcome the hole we dug for
ourselves,” Lavin said. “Defensively, we didn’t
play with energy in the first half, and we didn’t play with
intelligence offensively.”
Lavin’s teams have dug themselves holes on a larger,
season-long scale, but never in his tenure have they been this deep
in the sediment. Student attendance was down around 500 just three
days after UCLA students had packed themselves to the rafters for
the ‘SC game.
Many of the faithful who still showed up booed Lavin as he
walked to the locker room at halftime. Playing amid swirling rumors
about his job security, the Bruin players said they felt no
additional pressure to win one for their coach.
“We have the talent, he’s telling us what to do,
we’re just not executing,” Patterson said.
“It’s sad to see that he gets a lot of criticism
because there’s a lot of stuff that we’re not doing
right.”
The Bruins are now 2-5 at home and off to their worst 10-game
start since the 1987-1988 season. UCLA fired head coach Walt
Hazzard that year after finishing 16-12.
Kapono led the Bruins in scoring with 22 points. He passed
Charles O’Bannon, Tracy Murray and Trevor Wilson for sixth on
the all-time UCLA career-scoring list and is now 11 points behind
fifth-place Ed O’Bannon.
But it was a missed Kapono three-pointer with the Bruins down
nine that sealed the game for St. John’s. Hatten dashed coast
to coast for a layup, and the Bruins never got closer.
The Bruins haven’t had a losing season in an NCAA-record
54 years, but the losses are piling up. And so are the
emotions.
“It feels like we’ve done a disservice to anyone
who’s worn a Bruin jersey,” said a tearful sophomore
forward Josiah Johnson.