Ucla Has Run Out Of Margin For Error
College basketball
By default and with two months of dramatic mayhem behind them, the UCLA Bruins have discovered a new, revelatory, tense, absurd basketball reality in this strange season:
Every game counts.
And every play and every roar and every shaky silence and every teeny-tiny part of UCLA vs. everybody else.
Of course, the traditional Bruin tightrope walk comes in March - the held breaths, the nervous sounds, the final denouement.
Not this season, for a thousand reasons.
It’s already nervous time: With the longtime coach fired, with logical comparisons to the me-first Tracy Murray-Don MacLean era flying, with ugly performances piling up before January, with the Pacific 10 Conference appearing to be much stronger than last season, what happens in the next month or so probably is more important than what happens this March.
How can you wait for the first round of the tournament when UCLA might not even get there?
It’s Judgment January: This is about eight players and four coaches figuring out things for themselves. Or failing.
The future of the program? The next coach? The NBA? Those are merely parlor guessing games, to be settled by what happens on the floor, UCLA vs. everybody else, and the whole thing could either shatter or be saved in the blink of an eye.
The players sensed the early emergency themselves after their 79-63 loss to Illinois last Saturday, calling a team meeting to try to stop the season from going up in flames, and UCLA won its next game, at St. Louis.
Interim Coach Steve Lavin has sensed it from the beginning of his fitful term, imploring the Bruins to grow up and stay focused on the battle of the moment.
“I’ve told the guys, we’re going half to half, minute to minute,” Lavin said. “If the five guys who start don’t play well, after five minutes we’ll mix up the lineup and try something else. I don’t care if I have to play walk-ons, I’m going to find guys who want to compete out there.”
Already, in seven games, the Bruin identity has taken on several tones, and there are guaranteed to be many more twists and turns in the next few weeks:
Junior achievement
Toby Bailey, J.R. Henderson and Kris Johnson have become the three most essential players on this team, and, for better or worse, seniors Charles O’Bannon and Cameron Dollar and sophomore Jelani McCoy are receding into supporting roles.
Johnson is in the starting lineup now, with Dollar coming off the bench as an inspirational and defensive leader (but definitely not a scoring threat), and with Johnson and Henderson working on the low post, O’Bannon is far from the first option.
There may not be three players who turn the ball over more, but these three juniors are the only Bruins who can change the course of a game - Bailey has been UCLA’s best all-around player and the only one who can beat defenders with the dribble; Henderson is the team’s pressure ball-handler and hardest matchup inside; and Johnson is the purest scorer on the squad.
Last season, these three led UCLA to the the Pac-10 title, but never really adapted to Coach Jim Harrick’s pleas for teamwork. And it’s showing this season, even as Bailey and Henderson weigh their NBA draft status.
Fast breaks
Does it seem as if the Big East is being ignored this season? There’s good reason. After losing Ray Allen, Allen Iverson and John Wallace to the NBA, and still stuck with Felipe Lopez, Big East teams are 0-10 against ranked nonconference opponents, losing by an average of 20 points, and only Villanova looks like a contender to go far in March. … Yes, that’s Ryan “Moose” Bailey starting as a freshman point guard for Penn State, with the Bailey trademark flying elbow on his jump shot. Toby’s younger brother originally committed to USC, but was allowed out of it when the Trojans fired Charlie Parker and replaced him with Henry Bibby. …
Arizona State took a major hit Saturday when swingman Quincy Brewer, maybe Coach Bill Frieder’s most important player, tore a ligament in his thumb. Brewer will sit out the rest of the season, and an already-thin Sun Devil team got thinner. … Arizona junior guard Miles Simon’s season is in jeopardy too. Simon, who hasn’t played this season because of academic problems, apparently won’t be available at least until Jan. 11 and, if he doesn’t pass a make-up course, he could be out for the season.
Though Kansas and Kentucky still look dominant, St. Louis’ Spoonhour is keeping his eye on Cincinnati, the preseason No. 1 team and the Billikens’ Conference USA rival. “Knowing Bob (Huggins) as I do, we’ll see the best of Cincinnati in February,” Spoonhour said.