PALO ALTO ““ For 39 minutes and 54 seconds, the Bruins
looked right into the eyes of the fates and gritted their
teeth.
They wrestled for rebounds. They dove for loose balls. They
controlled the tempo, they sweated, they leapt, they looked as
comfortable as they had in a building where they always seemed to
pull everything together.
But when T.J. Cummings took a perfect Cedric Bozeman pass and
tried to lay the ball in under the basket, the fates stared back.
As though mired in an endless Greek tragedy, Cummings missed the
short shot, and UCLA came up short for the fifth game in a row
““ this time 52-51 in front of 7,391 at Maples Pavilion.
“I can’t explain how we lost,” sophomore Ryan
Walcott said.
For the first time in weeks, the postgame optimism of UCLA
players didn’t seem so silly. The Bruins (4-10, 2-4 Pac-10)
outrebounded Stanford (13-5, 4-2) 40-32 and dictated the pace
throughout the game. Their throwaway motion offense caught Stanford
head coach Mike Montgomery by surprise, especially given
UCLA’s tendency in the past to run and gun with its superior
athletes.
“They looked to shorten the game, and that made us do some
stuff a little differently defensively,” Montgomery said.
But no matter the amount of silver lining the Bruins were able
to build up, the luster still rubbed completely off when
Cummings’ shot didn’t go.
“I have nothing to say,” said Cummings, who finished
2-for-11. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said the final play called for
Bozeman to drive up the middle of the floor, where two Bruins would
be down low and two would be out on the wings.
The action transpired just as Lavin had drawn it up. Bozeman
went straight through a pair of Cardinal defenders and dropped the
ball off to Cummings, who was directly under the basket.
The junior moved the ball to the left side for a lay-in but it
clanked off the rim on the near side and back into his own hands.
Waiting in the corner was a leaping Jason Kapono, but his
desperation three-pointer had no chance.
“That’s a shot he’s made a lot of
times,” Lavin said.
In this season of uninspired losses and unemotional letdowns,
even a heartfelt, 40-minute effort of hustle and intensity
wasn’t enough.
“A loss is a loss, whether it’s by 30 or one,”
Bozeman said.
Senior Ray Young pulled down nine rebounds, four of which were
on the offensive end. Kapono chipped in with seven.
At the very least, the Bruins got an indication that they might
be able to play with some of the conference’s better teams if
they end up in the Pac-10 tournament, which is shaping up to be
their last chance to be dancing in March.
“At least we didn’t beat ourselves,” Lavin
said. “We were beaten by Stanford tonight. We played with
more poise.”
And beyond accomplishing the task of simply looking interested
on the court, UCLA players followed through on a calculated
strategy that gave them a chance to win the game with a layup.
But Lavin and the rest of his players know that one solid game –
especially a game they still lost – won’t be enough to signal
the resurrection of this team.
“Now the key is Saturday,” Lavin said, referring to
UCLA’s matchup with No. 25 Cal. “Are we mature enough
to pull it together? That’s all I can really ask as a coach:
for my players to play hard and play together.”
As he and the Bruins found out last night, sometimes even
that’s not enough.