CORVALLIS, Ore. “”mdash; Though the Bruins still seem like they
don’t want to admit it, last night’s 69-66 win over
Oregon State was, in this season of lowered expectations, just
about as big as they come.
The victory gave UCLA its fourth Pac-10 victory and pulled the
Bruins tentatively back into the No. 8 seed in the Pac-10
Tournament.
More importantly, UCLA effectively controls its own destiny from
here on out. Three games remain ““ a road tilt Saturday
against Oregon and a pair of home games against the Washington
schools next weekend ““ and if the Bruins can win two, the
odds are very much with them.
With surprisingly little help, UCLA might even end up in sixth
or seventh and avoid Arizona in the first round.
But faces were hardly gleeful in the UCLA locker room after the
game. Bruin players weren’t high-fiving or joking around.
“We’re not thinking about numbers right now,”
freshman Ryan Hollins said.
Their coach, as animated as he’d been all season just 30
minutes earlier, didn’t crack even a half-smile.
“I think it’s pretty much the same thing I’ve
done in my seven years here,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin
said.
“It’s the whole Coach Wooden thing, where you
don’t get too up or too down. I know it doesn’t make
for very good sound bytes, but I’m trying to stay pretty
even-keeled.”
Maybe they’re not used to being in this kind of position,
playing in a fairly ugly game between teams at the bottom of the
conference, slugging it out like a pair of one-armed tomato-can
boxers, all for a TV broadcast that was tape delayed two and a half
hours.
But this is the cold reality of a 7-17 season. Oregon State
might prove to be ““ on a decidedly smaller scale ““ this
team’s Kansas or Stanford.
“We really just want to be an any seed,” junior T.J.
Cummings said. “Right now, beggars can’t be
choosers.”
Now, if the Bruins can sweep the Washington schools, they
won’t have to rely on USC to beat Washington in the season
finale, like the Trojans needed UCLA to beat Washington State the
last game of the Pac-10 football season.
And Oregon State might end up the odd team out, desperately
needing a win over USC, Arizona or Arizona State to feel any kind
of comfort.
Perhaps it took being on the losing end of a game between
otherwise below-average teams to see its broader implications.
“This was a big game,” OSU head coach Jay John said.
“This game mattered.”