Shipp gets points for his shot

Whether or not UCLA forward Josh Shipp’s acrobatic last-second shot to beat California, 81-80, on Saturday went over the backboard and was allowable by NCAA rules, it was a shot that not many other players would have created.

At least that’s what Bruins point guard Darren Collison said.

“Only Josh would shoot that shot and make the shot at the same time,” Collison said. “Nobody else in the country that I know of would shoot that type of high-difficulty shot and make it. I think everybody else would have driven for a layup or a shot fake or something else, but Josh, that’s his personality.”

According to Herb Benenson, a spokesman for the Golden Bears’ athletic department, California Coach Ben Braun spoke to Pacific 10 Conference officials about that and another controversial play.

UCLA capped a second-half comeback in the last 16 seconds by first stealing an inbounds pass when Cal forward Ryan Anderson was stripped of the ball by UCLA guard Russell Westbrook. The ball went out of bounds and was given to UCLA. Braun said that Westbrook had fouled Anderson and that the ball went out of bounds off Shipp.

And then Shipp’s game-winner appeared to cross over the backboard, which is against NCAA rules.

According to Hank Nichols, the NCAA’s national coordinator of men’s officiating, the rule is often referred to as the Wilt Chamberlain rule because its original intent was to prevent a team from lobbing the ball over the backboard to an immensely tall and talented player because the play couldn’t be defended. “The intent wasn’t to stop a circus jump shot,” Nichols said.

One person who missed seeing Shipp’s shot live was his mother, Debbie, who has only missed a handful of Shipp’s high school and college games.

Debbie was in Phoenix with daughter Brittney, who suffered a severe cut on her right thumb and needed surgery Thursday. Debbie said Brittney was at an awards show and received a vase of flowers, and the vase cracked in Brittney’s hand.

And Debbie’s opinion of whether her son’s shot should have counted?

“My brother used to be an official,” Debbie Shipp said, “and I know the grief they take. My thing has always been whatever the call is, you live with it.”

UCLA players said their excitement over making big second-half comebacks to beat Stanford and California was tempered by their realization that needing to make those comebacks is a dangerous way to live in the postseason.

“We’re a lot more humble,” Collison said. “For the last two games, we didn’t come out at the start nearly as well. Coming back shows we don’t have any quit in us. But we can’t have those games now.

“It’s just something about this team. We know what the stakes are, and we play better when the stakes are high.”

“When we come out too excited I don’t think we play that well,” junior Luc Richard Mbah a Moute said. “We let our emotions take over, and every time we come out too excited we start out flat. Against Stanford, we were so excited to be playing for the [conference] championship we came out flat. Against Cal, it was senior night, we came out flat. That’s something we have to work on.”

And Kevin Love apologized for any trauma the team has foisted on Coach Ben Howland.

“I will say this,” Love said. “I think we aged Coach Howland about 10 years over these last two games. We can’t keep doing that to ourselves, getting down like that.”

Howland gave the team Sunday and today off. They will begin preparing for the Pac-10 tournament Tuesday. Top-seeded UCLA (28-3, 16-2) will play the winner of Wednesday’s game between eighth-seeded Washington and ninth-seeded California at 2:30 p.m. Thursday at Staples Center.

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diane.pucin@latimes.com