If This Bruin Has a Problem, so Does Lavin

Throughout the turbulence that has been this UCLA basketball season, one player has always remained seated with his seat belt fastened.

You always knew where to find Toby Bailey.

Always practicing hard, always showing up for games, sometimes struggling with his shot but never his effort.

For four consecutive years and 100 consecutive starts, you always knew where to find Toby Bailey.

Which makes it impossible to overstate the significance of the Bruin lineup at the start of Wednesday’s eventual 82-75 overtime victory over USC.

Because it did not contain Toby Bailey.

He had been thrown out of practice the previous day.

He was being benched because of it.

He did not enter the game until 5:35 had elapsed, at which point he missed his first seven field goal attempts.

To those wondering what could happen next to these former national title contenders, it has just happened.

In their first game since center Jelani McCoy was forced from the team because of drug problems, the Bruins played small, played silly, acted distracted.

This, against a USC team that had lost its last two home games by a combined 74 points.

Most ominous, the guy who is always there was hardly there, at least until the final minutes of regulation. Only then did Bailey shake out of his funk by scoring the Bruins final six points to tie the Trojans and send the game into overtime.

The win was the Bruins’ 20th, but the bigger story is this:

Steve Lavin cannot afford to lose Bailey, or he has lost what is left of what may be the most miserable 20-win season in NCAA history.

It’s not that Bailey will quit, of course.

But something inside him caused him to challenge Lavin during Tuesday’s practice, then walk off the floor when Lavin appropriately told him to quit complaining or leave.

Insiders say that “something” was fixed after Bailey met with Lavin Tuesday night.

But Bailey sure didn’t look like it early Wednesday, struggling in the first half and then walking off the court while shaking his head and muttering. He finished the game with just five baskets in 17 attempts with three turnovers.

Every 10 seconds in the United States, this sort of college disciplinary problem happens somewhere.

But this does not happen with a Los Angeles kid who has never failed to appreciate the wonder of playing for his hometown institution.

So what happened?

Insiders say it has to do with the team’s two highly regarded freshman guards, Baron Davis and Earl Watson.

Bailey is apparently among those who are concerned that Lavin has given an inordinate amount of the offense to the kids, whose recent inconsistency has been mirrored in the Bruin results.

Lavin is in danger of losing both players in the next couple of years, Davis to the NBA and homesick Watson to a transfer.

But none of that should influence Lavin’s game plan because, in important times, the kids still play like kids.

With 2:10 remaining in regulation and UCLA leading by one Wednesday, Davis’ one-on-one charging foul allowed the Trojans to eventually take the lead and force the overtime.

Watson, meanwhile, finished the game with one field goal in seven tries.

For those who support the freshman, there are these statistics:

Before Wednesday Bailey had taken 332 shots, far more than anyone on the team, while responding with just 43 percent accuracy rate.

Then again, Watson’s presence and McCoy’s suspension have forced Bailey, a natural shooting guard, to play out of position at forward. This is like asking a chemistry major to spend his final year studying psychology.

The NBA, and the team’s most loyal worker, cannot be pleased.

“All these changes have to effect you,” Bailey said Wednesday, but later added, “Hey, we have 20 wins, I’m happy.”

Lavin needs to read between the lines and realize that the player he calls, “our Cal Ripken,” probably still isn’t.

“To have all the changes you have, it has been tough on team chemistry,” Lavin acknowledged. “We haven’t found the flow, this is our biggest challenge.”

Should Bailey zip it and play? Of course, which is what he finally did late Wednesday.

But should Lavin start paying more attention to fixing the family atmosphere that this strange season has obviously strained?

The Bruins might not even get past the first round of the tournament if he doesn’t.

Everywhere you looked Wednesday, there were signs of the pre-Lavin Bruins.

Davis took one second to execute a slam dunk, and five seconds to celebrate it by pumping his arms and legs while lying underneath the basket.

After one timeout, J.R. Henderson remained lying at center court, clutching his arm in apparent pain. His team ran off, leaving him there.

And without McCoy’s presence, every problem was magnified.

Henderson, who will be a 6-8 center for the rest of the season, looked exhausted from fighting through the middle. And that was just in the first half.

The only player that Lavin will apparently add to his rotation is rookie forward Rico Hines, and that probably still isn’t enough.

“Our 20th win, on the road, these are things we can build on,” Lavin said.

Not without Toby Bailey’s full attention, you can’t.