These Bruins Playing Like a Team That Isn’t

“Stay in your stance!” preached the young, vibrant coach hired by UCLA to bring fundamentals back to Westwood.

A year later, Steve Lavin’s team is coming out of its stance.

Where the Bruins were once disciplined, they are now distracted.

Where they once howled as a team, they are now sounding like soloists.

Where they were once a reflection of Lavin, they are looking increasingly like the 1996 version of Jim Harrick.

This recent trend was never more true than Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion, where UCLA lost by three points to Stanford in a game that should not have been that close. As in, UCLA should have won 20.

On a night of floor-length sprints and soaring dunks, the Bruins had better athletes.

Judging from the way the Bruins excitedly screamed at the crowd and each other, they possessed more inspiration.

Listening to J.R. Henderson earlier this week--”This is a must win game for us”--the Bruins also posessed greater motive.

But Stanford had scoreboard, because Stanford has something else that the Bruins do not.

Focus.

A season of suspensions, intrigue and innuendo has apparently finally gotten to the Bruins, who played Thursday like they have played all of their big games this year.

They were thrilling for 10 minutes, exasperating for the other 30.

They are still one of the top 20 teams in the country at 18-5.

But the reality, as viewed by a raucous 13,079 in Thursday’s 84-81 loss, is this:

They have four returning stars from a group that came within one game of the Final Four last year . . . yet this March, they will be extremely fortunate to survive two rounds.

The final moments Thursday perhaps said as much about this team as the previous two months combined.

With the game tied, Bruin freshman Earl Watson fouled Arthur Lee about 21 feet from the basket, and Lee made both free throws to give Stanford the lead.

At the other end of the court, J.R. Henderson whined to the referees while fighting off the clutches of Mark Madsen . . . and then muffed a pass from Toby Bailey on what was setting up like a perfect pick-and-roll.

After Lee missed a foul shot, Bailey decided to go one-on-one against Kris Weems, lost the ball, then fouled Weems, whose free throws ended the Bruin hopes.

The game ended with fans screaming at the referees and the Bruins walking listlessly off the court.

During that wondrous run at the end of last year under Lavin, it was not like this.

The Bruins hung together during crunch time. They kept their heads down and their passes sharp. Their attitude was one of hard work, both the winning and spotlight was shared.

On Thursday, a typical scene was this:

Henderson standing alone underneath one basket, complaining to the referees, while his teammates were at the other end of the court; then Henderson finally shutting up and walking down to join them.

While the ball was still in play.

What has happened?

It starts, of course, with the boss, although Lavin has done well by winning 29 of his first 35 games as permanent head coach.

But there is something different in his style this year, something forced.

Last year, with his job and perhaps even career on the line, Lavin coached like he would be here forever.

Today, with a five-year contract that was renegotiated up from four, he coaches like he could lose that job tomorrow.

He essentially plays just six players who, perhaps because of UCLA’s intense pressing defense and fast-break offense, seemed exhausted after their final comeback run.

Freshman who played well earlier in the year during the suspensions of Kris Johnson and Jelani McCoy--Travis Reed and Billy Knight and a few others--are now invisible.

Lavin cites past NCAA champions who won with six players. But it doesn’t appear that these Bruins can be one of those teams.

“It’s been chaotic, it has been crisis management and damage control,” Lavin said of this season. “But it’s been like this since I took the job. Nothing has changed.”

But something has changed. Even the players feel it.

“Last year, we had no problems sustaining our concentration,” Kris Johnson said before Thursday’s game. “This year, it’s different, and I don’t know why.”

In Lavin’s defense, it’s also much tougher this year being Lavin.

This is because of, you guessed it, McCoy.

The embattled center is on the team, but he’s not. He is part of their pre-tournament effort but, chances are, he will not be around when the tournament begins.

Without any of the facts, how can anybody know this? Easy.

UCLA said as much.

UCLA said it recently by bringing in lawyers to answer questions about McCoy’s status, which they didn’t answer.

You do not bring in lawyers to answer questions about a player who is being benched for a sore foot or bad practice.

For now, for reasons that may become known when the lawyers finish with their lawyering, it seems Lavin has no choice but to keep McCoy around.

But McCoy’s presence amid unanswered questions is doing neither Lavin nor his team any good.

The Bruins have less than a month to turn it around. Lavin did it in about the same amount of time last year.

But first, the players and coaches need to return to the court today and get back into their stance. All of them.