Reeling Bruins Seek Answers

Not all the hair gel in the world could straighten out the tangled mess the UCLA basketball program is in right now.

For starters, the No. 24 Bruins lost their Pac-10 opener, 63-62 to Washington, a team carrying around a triple-digit RPI rating, Thursday night. Had that been UCLA’s only loss things wouldn’t be so bad. But it wasn’t the Bruins’ only loss. It wasn’t even their only loss to a non-ranked team.

A few weeks ago UCLA (8-3, 0-1) went to the Pearl Harbor Classic as the only ranked team. The Bruins finished third. They lost to Colorado State.

Then they had to survive overtime to beat South Florida. The Bruins have also had to eke out two-point wins over non-ranked teams in the past two weeks.

And prior to all that there was an embarrassing homecourt loss to Gonzaga. In that game, the Bruins scored their Pauley Pavilion record-low, 43 points.

But, hold onto your hairnet, those three losses are not the end of UCLA’s problems. Personnel matters may be at the root of the Bruins’ uncharacteristically bad losses.

The Bruins’ emotional leader, JaRon Rush, was suspended indefinitely for reportedly receiving a little extra book money from an agent.

Sophomore guard Billy Knight can’t decide if he wants on or off the team. He quit last Friday because of lack of playing time. He rejoined the team on Tuesday.

Center Dan Gadzuric, has inherited Bill Walton’s knees. The other big man, Jerome Moiso, seems more interested in the pro game.

Add it all together and you get coach Steve Lavin - the guy with the slick hair, black Lexus, million-dollar mansion, $578,000 rollover contract and back-to-back top-five recruiting classes - receiving worse reviews than The Phantom Menace. But the 35-year-old coach who is the only coach in UCLA history to win 22 games in each of his first three seasons, is taking it all in stride.

“You look around the country and teams are going to lose basketball games,” Lavin said. “A lot of games are going to come down to the final minutes and what is going to separate teams is the ability to execute offense, make free throws and make stops defensively.

“And that is where you really put your energy as opposed to worrying about things you can’t control like criticism or the media or expectations or the 11 championship banners that we practice and play under,” the coach continued.

“Basketball is a simple game and if you concentrate on the fundamentals and playing together. Good things are going to happen if you have good personnel.”

The thing that most bothers UCLA’s faithful is that the Bruins do have good personnel - top-10 personnel - but they rarely prove it.

Lavin said inexperience might play a role in his team’s problems.

“Sometimes I have to stop myself and remind myself that we are playing with a junior, three sophomores and a freshman,” he said.

But that excuse doesn’t seem to hold water when you consider No. 5 Arizona (12-2) starts two freshman guards, two sophomore forwards and a junior center. And that No. 1 Stanford also relies heavily on inexperienced players.

Most critics appear to believe the Bruins’ problems lie in poor decision-making, uninspired play and a lack of assertiveness.

And this, the start of the Pac-10 season, is the wrong time to go into a shell. Especially for UCLA, whom everybody wants a piece of.

“When you play UCLA you are not playing UCLA of today, you are playing UCLA of years ago,” said WSU coach Paul Graham. “And if you beat UCLA, that’s a feather in your cap.

“UCLA gets everybody’s best shot,” Graham added.

And the Bruins should get everybody’s best shot. This is the team that wiped the floor with teams for more than a decade in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Even as recently as five years ago the Bruins were national champs. Now they can’t even pull it together and give everybody their best shot.

UCLA at WSU Today: 3 p.m. Radio: KXLY 920