If Nothing Else, Nobody Can Call These Bruins Defenseless

There is no rhyme or reason to all these early-season “Classics.”

No sense to the pairings, no rhythm to the games, no atmosphere in the buildings.

These “Classics” are mostly brokered by television executives trying to fill their schedules in the dead month before conference play begins. Once in a while you get a great game from these things. A game like Duke against Cincinnati last Saturday at the Great Alaska Shootout where the intensity was as if the NCAA tournament had been moved up to November and played in the snow and there were three incredible plays in the last 20 seconds.

But mostly these “Classics” are deadly displays of passes into the stands, rebounds that can’t be held onto, shots that shouldn’t have been taken or which should have been made and weren’t, and coaches who say bravely afterward that this 2,000-mile trip was a great learning experience and will be extremely helpful come NCAA tournament time.

Which brings us to the gathering at the Arrowhead Pond on Saturday. The Wooden Classic introduced Pepperdine to Kansas and UCLA to Oklahoma State.

It introduced Pepperdine to the frustrating nearness of an upset that would have introduced the Wave to “SportsCenter” highlights. Kansas, ranked No. 7 but not for long, beat Pepperdine, 62-55, but the Waves had no less talent than the Jayhawks, only less knowledge in the art of the end game.

It introduced Oklahoma State to the innocently frantic defense of the Baby Bruins, those freshman and sophomore nuts who throw their bodies fearlessly everywhere and made the Cowboys have 25 turnovers and made Oklahoma State Coach Eddie Sutton sigh and say, “That’s the most turnovers a team of mine has had in my eight-plus years here.” And then it introduced the 11th-ranked Cowboys (but not for long) to a 69-66 loss.

It introduced UCLA guard Baron Davis to the forearm of Oklahoma State guard Doug Gottlieb. Gottlieb, of Tustin and making a homecoming, so frustrated at his perception of the officiating, nailed Davis in the gut just before the end of the first half. Then Gottlieb was introduced to ejection from the game.

It introduced the folks from AirTouch Cellular to the perils of sponsoring halftime entertainment. There was a failure to announce clearly that Keith Thompson of Long Beach had to make a layup, free throw and three-point shot in 25 seconds and, here’s the tricky part, consecutively, no misses, in order to win $100,000. Thompson made the three shots, the crowd went wild, Thompson went crazy. Until the PA announcer had to come back and say, in effect, “Never mind.” Thompson had missed his first free-throw attempt. No money for Thompson.

The crowd did not take this well. The chanting of “AirTouch [bad word]” did, however, hit home with AirTouch public relations people so Thompson was introduced to a $25,000 check as a hastily conceived consolation prize.

What was not introduced was much “Classic” basketball.

In fact, the halftime mix-up was the only thing that caused the crowd to become engaged. There were allegedly 14,237 people in attendance and most of them had their enthusiasm anesthetized by an unseemly loss a certain football team had suffered earlier. The most noise that came from the vicinity of the Pond had happened outside in the parking lot before Game 1 of this doubleheader, when the UCLA football team had taken a 38-28 lead and the people watching TV out in a hospitality tent went nuts.

But UCLA basketball Coach Steve Lavin tried to put a happy face on that football game. Yes, Lavin said, he had allowed his young Bruins to stay at the team hotel and watch the football game instead of have a pregame shootaround. “I was hoping we’d gain some inspiration,” Lavin said. “But we did talk about defense.”

The UCLA defense against Oklahoma State was sometimes disjointed, sometimes unplanned but always filled with the frantic, waving arms of the fuzzy-cheeked children Lavin has collected. There is never a lack of energy, and every loose ball causes at least three Bruins to dive to the floor. This unbridled enthusiasm can only bring good to UCLA as the kids learn more and more about organized defense.

After the first game, after Pepperdine had missed a gigantic chance to prove something to itself, Jelani Gardner shook his head, looked down at the stat sheet, then shook his head again.

Yes, Gardner said, it would hurt to look at the film of this game. Yes, Gardner said, Pepperdine could have beaten Kansas, should have beaten Kansas, darn it, why didn’t his team beat Kansas instead of lose to Kansas, 62-55?

“It would have been big,” the Pepperdine guard said. “It would have been real big.”

So Pepperdine missed its chance for the spotlight.

But not its last chance. For there are “Classics” yet to come for the Waves. Against Michigan State in the Pearl Harbor Basketball Classic. Against Rhode Island in the Sparkletts Invitational.

So many “Classics.” Too many “Classics”?

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com