Maybe Bruins Learned Lesson the Hard Way

Kansas guard Jacque Vaughn has a broken right wrist, but Coach Roy Williams asked him anyway: “Would you like to start against UCLA?”

Jacque said thanks, but no thanks.

I am not sure UCLA could have stopped a player with a broken wrist Saturday. Kansas--the nation’s No. 1-ranked team--looked very strong in a 96-83 victory over UCLA, which no longer looks like one of the nation’s top 25 teams.

As a gesture to his Pasadena past, Vaughn was asked by Williams if he would like to put on a uniform and be introduced at Pauley Pavilion with the Kansas starting lineup, for the first time this season.

“I went to Jacque and asked if I could get it approved, would he like to be announced as a starter?” Williams said. “He called me back and said, ‘Coach, I decided I shouldn’t do that, because it would take away from my teammates.’

“I don’t know that many people who would do something unselfish like that,” Williams added.

Kansas is an unselfish team, though.

UCLA’s Toby Bailey said of the Jayhawks, “They play picture-perfect ball. Their offense is all about getting a good shot. The ball never touches the floor.”

And UCLA’s offense?

“The ball goes to one side and it stays there,” UCLA guard Cameron Dollar said.

“We practice all week on moving the ball, moving the ball, moving the ball,” said equally frustrated teammate J.R. Henderson. “Then we get in a game and it doesn’t happen.”

If I were coaching UCLA, the ball wouldn’t touch the floor all day Monday at practice.

That job is Steve Lavin’s, who even has the Kansas coach’s sympathy.

Williams said, “I feel for Steve Lavin and his players,” what with everything that has happened recently to the UCLA program.

We all know the Bruins won the 1995 NCAA tournament. Here is what has happened to them since the start of the 1996 NCAA tournament:

Princeton embarrassed them. Their top assistant coach left. Their head coach got fired. And then Tulsa made them look worse than Princeton did. And then before a game against Northridge, the new coach had to discipline three Bruin players. And then Kansas made them look even worse than Tulsa did.

UCLA is 1-2, all at home.

Kansas is 7-0, winning six on the road.

And all without Jacque Vaughn.

“I’ve been saying all along, and I know this sounds strange, they’re a better team without Jacque,” Lavin raved. “Jacque’s on the dribble so much. Without him, Kansas puts on a passing clinic. They cut you up like a side of fries.”

These are two teams going in opposite directions.

Kansas couldn’t look much better, except for Scot Pollard’s sideburns.

The center wears his facial hair in a way that makes him look like the scariest thing from Kansas since “In Cold Blood.” But he actually is a big pussycat who plops a black British racing cap on his head after the game.

“I’m thinking of adding a chin strap,” Pollard said.

Pollard and forward Raef LaFrentz ate UCLA’s lunch under the basket, while LaFrentz’s roommate, Billy Thomas, buried four three-point shots. They were so good, Inglewood’s contribution to the Kansas program, Paul Pierce, didn’t even need to dominate the game, the way he often does.

The game was so one-sided, UCLA was down by 30 points in the first half.

“Our feeling at halftime wasn’t cocky,” Pollard said.

No? What was it?

“Nervousness. We know UCLA’s better than this.”

It is? I hope so.

I haven’t seen it yet. There were times Saturday, I wondered if UCLA would ever get off a clean shot. I didn’t count one open jumper until Dollar’s nearly three minutes into the game, which he missed.

At halftime, UCLA had five assists in 20 minutes. That is a mind-numbing number.

“We kept trying to make a home-run pass, every time,” Bailey said.

Twenty months ago, some of these same UCLA players showed America how to play basketball.

This week, the UCLA team had better study the way Kansas plays it.