As the members of the UCLA men’s basketball team filed out
of the locker room Sunday evening, their heads were down.
They still seemed a little shocked.
They had just played arguably their worst game of the season in
a 71-68 loss to USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, a
loss that seemed inconceivable before the game began.
The teams appeared to be heading in different directions, with
Pac-10-leading UCLA looking to secure a high seed in the NCAA
tournament and USC, losers of three straight, falling into
wait-“˜til-next-year mode without second-leading scorer Gabe
Pruitt. The Bruins could recall a 21-point victory over their
rivals when the teams met at Pauley Pavilion one month ago, while
the Trojans were coming off a 60-47 loss to lowly Washington
State.
And as the ball was tossed into the air for the tip-off Sunday,
the conventional wisdom flew out the window.
“The way that we played in the first game at home is the
way we should play every night,” sophomore point guard Jordan
Farmar said. “To have that to compare it to, that’s
what makes it hurt.”
That was a sentiment echoed time and time again. The Bruins
seemed to know that they had to play far below their ability to
lose this game. But that’s exactly what they did.
“Every loss hurts, but losing to a team we’re real
capable of beating is definitely disappointing,” senior
center Ryan Hollins said.
The indications were early that the day could be very long and
forgettable for the No. 19 Bruins.
UCLA had four turnovers, three by Farmar, before Arron Afflalo
scored the team’s first point 3:26 into the game. The Bruins
finished the first half with 10 turnovers and shot a mere 30
percent from the field.
“We can get beat by anybody, and we can beat anybody on a
given night,” coach Ben Howland said. “That’s
what we’ll do. We have a young team. We have to learn from
our mistakes.”
Those mistakes were made on both ends of the floor against
USC.
After a 13-0 run early in the second half gave UCLA a 38-32
lead, USC responded with a 13-0 run of its own. The Trojans never
trailed the rest of the way, spreading out the Bruin defense and
consistently getting to the rim for easy layups. In a startling
statistic, USC’s four-guard line up finished with 36 points
in the paint.
USC freshman guard Ryan Francis scored 12 points, and senior
guard Dwayne Shackleford, who came in averaging 2.9 points in 11.8
minutes a contest, scored all 12 of his points on layups and free
throws in the second half.
“We got exposed tonight,” Afflalo said. “We
couldn’t keep our man in front of us. All of us were guilty
of that.”
Though UCLA, who trailed by 10 points with 1:04 to play, made a
late run and actually had a chance to tie the game with one second
to play, that was hardly one of the most important stories of
Sunday’s game.
The story was the turnovers.
The story was the defense.
The story was the lack of an inside presence.
And while UCLA graciously credited USC for playing a great game,
the real story was that the Bruins lost a game they should have
won.
“I hope that the burn of losing, especially in a game like
this, carries over so that we really come out intense and ready to
play,” said Farmar, who led UCLA with 21 points on 7-for-17
shooting. “Ready to dominate the way we should, the way we
had been earlier.”
For Howland, whose Bruins had won three straight against USC,
Sunday will most certainly be used as a learning experience. It is
tangible proof that UCLA can lose to anyone.
“Anybody who encourages any line of thinking otherwise,
that’s a problem,” Howland said. “Anytime you let
your guard down, that’s what happens.”