A Lei’d-Back Approach Not Going to Work

It is 11 a.m. on the isle of Maui, just your basic Tuesday morning in paradise. Flamingos are flapping on the hotel lawn, ahi and mahi mahi are sizzling in the kitchen, sailboats are bobbing on the Pacific like Ivory soap in a tub.

Nice spot if you haven’t got a care in the world. But the national champions from UCLA are far from happy, this fine Hawaiian morn. They have to be up playing basketball, indoors, instead of lounging on the beach. This they brought on themselves, by staggering through and losing the season’s first game on the previous evening, clumsily, to Santa Clara.

Summer’s over. The Bruins had their fun. They went to the White House, razzed that old Razorback in the Rose Garden, had their parade. The coach, Jim Harrick, appeared in a deodorant commercial, guest-starred on “The Tonight Show” (where Jay Leno pronounced his name “HA-rick, not HAIR-rick) and wrote his autobiography, out soon from Bonus Books.

Upon arriving in Hawaii, star forward Charles O’Bannon obligingly flashed his championship ring at a photographer, a picture that made the front pages here as the Maui Invitational got under way.

It didn’t take long for the Bruins to find out how little those rings would mean to opponents. They didn’t impress Santa Clara one bit. Cameron Dollar had no points and fouled out. Toby Bailey’s defense was atrocious. Freshman center Jelani McCoy committed a goaltending violation for every shot he blocked, then added another for good measure. The bench was of no help whatsoever.

And Harrick, against his nature, more or less let the Bruins go down in flames. He hated to sacrifice a whole game, but a lesson needed to be learned here. Harrick was willing to accept one defeat, in order to make an important point.

“That’s what happens when young people read their press clippings,” Harrick would say later, flatly, without anger.

His point was made. This is not last year’s team. This is this year’s team.

“We are not a great basketball team, by any means, right now,” Harrick acknowledged Tuesday after UCLA had struggled for a 68-57 victory over a nothing-special Wisconsin team, picked by many to finish at the bottom of the Big Ten.

“We lost a lot of good players. We lost three guys who are all contributing in the NBA today. Young people get antsy; they want to run and run and run. But they don’t want to recognize how different this team is from our championship team.

“Well, we tried it their way. Now, we’ll do it my way.”

Harrick gave his players some freedom in the Santa Clara game, letting them play their way, their favorite style of ball, fast and loose. It felt necessary to the coaching staff to give the guys some rope, to remind them the hard way that this is the kind of thing that can happen if the Bruins get big-headed about how good they are.

As a result, they got their ears pinned back. Santa Clara outclassed them, thoroughly. J.R. Henderson, one of the few UCLA players off to a good start, called the entire experience a wake-up call, and said candidly, “We have a target on our chests, and opponents are going to attack, attack, attack. That’s just the way it’s going to be this year.”

Arkansas lost its season opener, to Massachusetts, after winning the national championship, same way UCLA has now done. And the Razorbacks eventually made it back to the following season’s championship game, so it is not as though the Bruins’ performance in Maui means that this will be a long season.

But with less talent, UCLA needs more effort. Opposing guards have been blowing right by Bailey. McCoy hasn’t screened anybody in two games, Harrick pointed out. Kris Johnson was stripped of the ball by a Wisconsin player, then just jogged after the guy. And unless UCLA can find an outside shooter, zone defenses will be waiting for them coast to coast.

Last season, UCLA’s players kept telling people how “nobody respects us,” which was ridiculous, in that coaches and reporters alike ranked the Bruins No. 1 in their polls, week after week. This was a motivational ploy. Blame press clippings for being too negative; blame press clippings for being too positive.

Well, this season UCLA really will have to work harder to earn more respect. There is a good team here, one that could become a very good team. But it might take a month or two.