Bruins Left to Ponder a Big Loss

Half-empty. Half-full.

How do you evaluate what happened here Saturday to UCLA? What meant more: the hard and humbling start, the spine-tingling second-half comeback, or the decisive final minutes?

After a draining, dynamic, 93-80 defeat at the hands of Stanford before a roaring, taunting 7,510 at Maples Pavilion, the Bruins found themselves straddling pessimism and optimism, not quite comfortable with either emotion.

Eighth-ranked, 13-3, proud, frustrated, obstinately set on playing only six players, and heading . . . where?

“It’s like we’re at a turning point or something,” said senior Kris Johnson, who scored a game-high 20 points and led UCLA’s 24-7 surge at the start of the second half that almost, but not quite, sank the No. 7 Cardinal.

“It just seems like the national-title season, we haven’t been able to get those big wins against the big teams. We [got] pumped up for the Arizona game and the Stanford game, and it’s heartbreaking that on national TV, in this kind of atmosphere, we performed like we did.”

This time, as against Arizona earlier this month, the Bruins traveled into the arena of a highly ranked rival and at times raised themselves to great heights.

But once again, UCLA, which dropped to 4-2 in conference, 2 1/2 games behind both the Cardinal (16-0, 5-0) and Arizona, didn’t have either the staying power, the depth or the consistency to pull off a significant victory.

After the Cardinal overpowered the Bruins on its way to a 51-33 first-half lead, last season’s historic 48-point victory here over UCLA seemed not so much a fluke as the beginning of an era of Cardinal dominance.

“We’ve got to go back and address why we’re getting off to such slow starts,” Johnson said. “I mean, it definitely caught up with us and burned us today. It’s definitely a problem with this team.”

Then, the Bruins charged out from halftime and started playing some uplifting basketball themselves, seizing control of the middle from the usually dominant Stanford big men and outscoring the Cardinal, 13-3, in the first 3:37 of the half.

“We came back and we fought them,” said center Jelani McCoy, who came off the bench to score 19 points and grab 12 rebounds. “That was important--we didn’t lay down for them.”

It got as close as 58-57, with 12:39 to play, after Toby Bailey converted a dunk after a McCoy pass. But Cardinal point guard Arthur Lee, who had struggled, immediately made back-to-back three-pointers to get the Cardinal’s feet back on the ground.

Later, a 10-0 UCLA run concluded with Johnson’s offensive rebound and free throw, narrowing the deficit to 70-68 with 7:21 to go.

UCLA was playing fluidly, finally passing the ball crisply on offense, crashing to the basket for rebounds (Stanford was outrebounded for only the second time this season, 48-36, with Bailey getting 11 and Johnson 10).

But the Bruins, with Coach Steve Lavin stubbornly sticking to his six-man rotation against the Cardinal’s comfortable mix of 10 players, hit the wall. From that point on, Baron Davis and then J.R. Henderson fouled out for UCLA, and Stanford outscored the Bruins, 23-12.

“We’re not proud of the loss,” said Henderson, who scored 17 points. “But we felt like we picked up the intensity in the second half, we did as much as we could do. We’ve just got to realize we’ve got USC next [at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday], and move on.”

Lavin, who finds positive points in the rubble of the dreariest debacle, emphasized that Stanford, which made 14 of 26 three-pointers and is off to its best start, is a potential national champion.

“Of anybody in our league, even more than Arizona, I think Stanford has the best chance at the Final Four,” Lavin said. “Because of their depth.”

Though freshmen Travis Reed and Billy Knight showed flashes of quality play in the early parts of this season, Lavin has not used either for any real action since mid-December.

Could fatigue among UCLA’s iron six be taking its toll?

“It’s not a far-fetched thing,” Johnson said, “when you’re playing against a team that uses 10 guys in double-digit minutes.

“That’s up to Coach Lavin. Might just want to use a hard six. . . . So maybe we have to get in better shape and go with six, or we have to play more guys.”