Notre Dame Finds It Must Dig Deeper : College basketball: Irish are in a 1-3 hole without standout LaPhonso Ellis--their worst start since 1981.

Without the Phonz, happy days have been few this season for the Notre Dame basketball team.

Going into today’s game against UCLA (4-0) at the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center, the Fighting Irish are 1-3 and seemingly counting the days until the return of their best player, LaPhonso Ellis.

A 6-foot-9 forward who was a freshman All-American last season, when he averaged 13.5 points and 9.4 rebounds a game and had 24 points and 13 rebounds in an 82-79 victory over UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, Ellis is academically ineligible for at least a few more days.

Last summer, his grade-point average slipped below 2.0, the university-imposed minimum for athletes. Ellis, who is eligible by the less-stringent NCAA standards, is expected to return to the lineup this week after the university registrar accepts his fall grades.

Meanwhile, the Irish continue to struggle, though they have everybody back from a team that was 21-9 and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament before losing to Georgetown, 81-74.

After beating San Francisco in their only home game, they lost to Louisville at Indianapolis, to Indiana at Bloomington, Ind., and to Marquette at Milwaukee. The 80-68 defeat by Marquette ended a 12-game winning streak against the Warriors.

Ellis’ absence has played a major part in their worst start since 1981, Coach Digger Phelps said last week.

“It’s like the Celtics without Larry Bird last season,” he said. “As one of the kids said, ‘It would be like football without Tony Rice.’ Certain guys make the chemistry work. LaPhonso is one of those guys.”

Last season, Ellis helped the Irish gain a 39-20 rebounding edge over the Bruins. In an 81-65 win over Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA tournament, he had 17 points and 18 rebounds in only 25 minutes.

“I can understand why everyone’s concerned and looking at us and saying, ‘What’s wrong?’ ” said Phelps, who believes that the reason should be obvious to anybody who has seen Ellis play. “He’s an impact player, and impact players make a lot of things happen.

“He’s a charismatic player and one of the best who will ever play Notre Dame basketball.”

For now, though, the Irish will make do without him.

And UCLA, seemingly, will take nothing for granted.

Last season, the Bruins avoided J.R. Reid for all but 10 minutes in two games against North Carolina--he was returning from an injury when the teams met in December and was suspended when they met in March--and still they lost twice, absorbing one of their worst losses at Chapel Hill, N.C.

In fact, in six games last season against teams that advanced beyond the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Bruins were 1-5, beating only Louisville on a controversial goaltending call at the buzzer.

“That was probably as good as we were a year ago,” Coach Jim Harrick said. “I thought we really got the maximum out of the talent we had. You really couldn’t have expected much more out of that club.

“We hope to take a step further and be a little bit better this year.”

Still, Harrick said, this rivalry means more to Notre Dame than it does to UCLA. The most famous game in the series, of course, was a 71-70 Irish victory that ended UCLA’s record 88-game winning streak in 1974.

Harrick, though, grumbled for weeks after last season’s game.

“Every UCLA coach has been programmed to say (this game isn’t that important to them),” said Phelps, who has faced seven Bruin coaches in more than 18 seasons at Notre Dame. “I think any time they play outside their conference, they make a statement like that. But this is like Notre Dame and Southern Cal in football. It’s a rivalry.

“If it’s not that big a game, then why are we one of their few sellouts in the last few years? When they come here, our students know it’s UCLA. And when we show up at Pauley, the UCLA student section seems to be really wired.

“No matter what the coaches say, the fans and student bodies know that this has been one of the traditional rivalries in college basketball for the last 20 years.”

Phonz or no Phonz, another scene will be played out today.