Falling Irish Desperate to Upset UCLA : Basketball: Digger Phelps’ wounded team brings five-game losing streak into Pauley Pavilion Saturday.

Notre Dame basketball Coach Digger Phelps jokingly compares his team to a classic oil painting of the Revolutionary War.

“The drummer’s going down, the fife guy’s going down, the flag’s going down. They’re all wounded, and one guy’s limping,” Phelps said. “That’s how we’re going into Pauley (Pavilion).”

Notre Dame, having hit the skids with five straight losses after a pair of opening victories, faces No. 8 UCLA Saturday at Los Angeles.

Phelps said an upset would put the Irish back on track.

“All you’ve got to do is beat somebody good,” he said. “That’s where your confidence goes right up.”

Notre Dame’s losing streak is its longest since the 1981-82 season. The Irish have not lost more than five in a row since Phelps’ first season, 1971-72, when they had losing streaks of six and seven.

Notre Dame’s confidence plummeted after a 91-77 defeat at lightly regarded Butler University in Indiana on Wednesday night, the latest in the string of Irish defeats.

“In the second half you could see it in their faces,” Butler’s Darin Archbold said. “They looked baffled. They didn’t seem to know what to do.”

The season had looked promising earlier in the year.

But the Irish lost sophomore starter Monty Williams to a heart condition in September. Williams would be taking a dangerous risk to play competitively, doctors said.

Last Saturday, starting guard Tim Singleton crumpled during a game against Kentucky with an injured back. He’ll be out at least six weeks, and if surgery is required, probably the entire season.

The Irish opened the season by beating Fordham 56-46 and Iowa 77-68 in the first two rounds of the Big Apple NIT.

But then came No. 2 Arizona in the semifinals, and the Irish lost 91-61, their worst defeat in nearly nine years. No. 5 Duke then beat Notre Dame, 85-77, in the third-place game. The Irish then lost regular season games to No. 7 Indiana, Kentucky and Butler.