Scoop Dreams: On the Bruins bouncing back

What a fabulous way to start March Madness, right?

Or was that 17-point loss to Oregon in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 Tournament not how you think the UCLA basketball team should have began its postseason?

It’s hard to say the loss was shocking because that implies that there was some kind of energy within Staples Center on Thursday night.

The Bruin bench was quieter than a nursing home for the entire second half and their affiliated fans were too busy making new plans for Friday night to pretend UCLA was going to make another miraculous comeback.

No, the Bruins worst loss in their 14 years of participation in the conference tournament was more of a slow drain of hope.

Drip, drip, drip.

That was your expectations for an enjoyable NCAA Tournament run pooling at your feet.

The reasons for the loss weren’t anything new.

Oregon did not employ some revolutionary scheme (Chip Kelly sticks to football). The small tear in the cartilage of Malcolm Lee’s left knee was a distraction, but not an excuse.

Rather, it was the usual suspects of woes that decided to all plague the Bruins at once, against a team that UCLA should have been able to beat even if it had to combat one or two of the issues.

The ball screens that opponents had used on the Bruins throughout their early-season struggles resurfaced to work like magic for the Ducks, who rolled off them for easy layups and wide-open threes.

Some players get juiced to play in a professional arena ““ maybe if you normally play in Eugene, Ore. ““ but UCLA looked stagnant on both ends of the floor.

“We weren’t really there emotionally at all,” redshirt freshman center Anthony Stover said. “We weren’t motivated and it was obvious with our play tonight that none of us were out here to play basketball.”

For a team that had won 13 of its last 16 games, a No. 2 seed in this conference tournament and a prime shot at improving its seeding for the next level of postseason play, this loss might have surprised some.

“I was really excited with the momentum we built coming into this tournament and we really laid an egg tonight,” coach Ben Howland said.

In reality though, all we can expect from a young team like this is that we can’t expect anything. This is the kind of team that makes predictions (and those brash columnists who make them) look stupid.

Even since the full bandwagon arrived after UCLA’s 22-point win over No. 10 Arizona, the Bruins have shown off how capricious their efforts can be. The first game-and-a-half of the team’s Washington trip was dreadful and then the heart returned in a gutty overtime win in Pullman, Wash.

So, as we approach Selection Sunday, which has now lost any kind of basketball addiction-induced luster, the Bruins’ ultimate fate is still far from being decided.

Thankfully, UCLA’s fall from grace was cushioned by its “body of work,” which will keep it from dropping completely out of the NCAA Tournament. Instead, it will most likely land as a No. 8 or No. 9 seed in a faraway region (not that regionality really matters considering this latest loss Downtown).

Regardless of the specifics, this will set up a tough (but winnable) first-round matchup with the victor’s reward being a No. 1 seed playing in a near hometown environment.

A more positive spin would be to say that now Howland has a full week to prepare his players for what will be (for all but two of them) their first NCAA Tournament game.

All three of the Bruins’ losses down the stretch were followed up by wins and you have to assume there’s something to that, whether it’s the wisdom of their credentialed teacher or just the wake-up call of dejection that restarts this team’s battery.

“It will be a true test of our character as to how this team bounces back from this performance,” Howland said.

That phrase has been uttered before, let me tell you, but it won’t be spoken again this season. Unlike the Pac-10 Tourney, the NCAA version is the Real Deal Holyfield, win or go home.

And that means capricious teams like the Bruins will either show the proper energy or be forced to accept another disappointing assessment of their ability.

From here on out, bouncing back is just for racquetballs.

Smukler is the men’s basketball columnist for the Daily Bruin and co-hosts Overtime with the Daily Bruin Sports, which airs every Monday at 6:30 p.m. on UCLAradio.com. E-mail him at esmukler@media.ucla.edu.

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