Don’t Throw In Towel Yet

With 21 seconds remaining in a special team’s final afternoon together, Steve Lavin gave one last pep talk.

He dropped in front of the UCLA bench, laid his hands on the shoulders of a player whose slumped head was covered.

“Take the towel off,” he told Kris Johnson.

“I can’t, Coach,” Johnson said. “I don’t want the whole nation to see me crying.”

“Tears are good,” Lavin said. “And nobody on this team has anything to be ashamed of.”

Off came the cloth. And while many eyes were red long after the Bruins’ 80-72 loss to Minnesota in the Midwest Regional final, never again did Bruins try to hide them.

“Coach is right, we can walk out of here proud,” said Johnson, who relayed the above story. “We proved something this year.”

Proud, because this something had little to do with basketball.

The Bruins lost a game Saturday but completed a season in which they regained their souls.

They played as a team. They behaved as adults. They laughed only when appropriate. They cried for real.

A national championship will not be necessary to show that this town’s most high-profile--and sometimes most embarrassing--college athletic program has once again discovered class.

“This year we showed that we are not brash, cocky, ungrateful people,” Johnson said. “There are good people in here.”

To the very end, they were.

One of Cameron Dollar’s last acts for UCLA was fighting with two Gophers for the ball at center court, rolling around on the floor like a kid in a ditch.

Even if he had won the fight, the Bruins were still down by six with 21 seconds left.

Remember him for that.

Charles O’Bannon’s last act was a gesture toward the stands as he left the floor, the gentle touching of two raised fists.

“It was for my father,” he said. “I wanted to thank him for sticking with me all these four years.”

Remember him for that.

Toby Bailey played all 40 minutes Saturday, as did O’Bannon. He said he was more tired than he has been all season. In the last five minutes he made only two shots that weren’t free throws or dunks.

“Yeah, I was tired,” he said. “But no way I would ever want to come out. No way.”

Johnson played more than half the game on an injured right ankle that had become so unbearable, he took an ugly painkilling shot before this tournament.

“The label that we are prima donnas and crybabies, that has totally changed,” Bailey said. “Those labels can no longer be associated with our team.”

The Gophers tried to resurrect the reputation afterward, but ended up sounding silly.

They said that during their pregame breakfast, team officials passed out copies of a newspaper article in which O’Bannon supposedly ripped them during an interview session Friday.

“When you say stuff like that, others get offended,” Minnesota guard Bobby Jackson said. “He said we were a no-name team, and we wanted to show him what a no-name team looked like.”

Two problems with that statement.

First, anybody who has followed UCLA during the past several years can accurately define “popping off.” And what O’Bannon said, that wasn’t it.

O’Bannon never called them a “no-name” team, he said only they didn’t have the big names of other schools but quickly qualified that with a compliment about their ability.

When O’Bannon characterized the Bruins as “bullies,” he was referring to other teams’ perceptions of them. If he said they were “just Minnesota,” we missed it.

A fine line, perhaps, but one that Lavin has drawn in the sand. With the possible exception of the USC games--when bad is good--boasting is something he will not tolerate.

The second problem is that, if Minnesota was so inspired by O’Bannon’s words, why did the Gophers wait until four minutes into the second half to start playing like it?

No, this game was a case of the reeling McCoy.

The Gophers were not better than the Bruins.

There was simply more of them.

The Gophers were slower, less athletic, more tentative. But they were smart enough to take advantage of McCoy’s absence.

During one stretch of Minnesota’s second-half run, 12 of 13 scoring possessions came as a result of an inside shot.

For UCLA, this was no Alamo, this was an interruption.

Bailey is back next year. McCoy is back. Johnson is back. J.R. Henderson might be back.

Add Baron Davis--what point guard wouldn’t want to play for the Bruins after watching Dollar on Thursday night?--and they have another strong team.

Only one with maturity. One that will not make the community smirk, but shine.

After last year’s first-round loss to Princeton, there was anger.

“Lot of guys tearing the locker room up,” Johnson said.

This year, there were only tears and hugs.

“All kinds of guys saying, ‘I love you,’ everybody realizing how together we are,” Johnson said. “A team that is totally turned around.”

It was at that point that Johnson said he looked around the Alamodome locker room and wondered something.

“Maybe we can get back here next year,” Johnson said, smiling. “The Final Four. Isn’t it here next year?”

He knew that. So should you.