Seniors Want to Go Out in Style

The UCLA regular season ends today. So now, after all the suspensions and tense victories and gaping defeats, it gets irregular?

In the last Pauley Pavilion game for the Bruins’ milestone senior class, UCLA closes Pacific 10 play against Arizona, the team that this season prevented UCLA from winning its fourth consecutive league title, but only two days ago saw its 19-game winning streak ended by USC.

“I just don’t want to go out in my last game in Pauley as a loser,” senior forward Kris Johnson said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about, that’s the driving force in this game.

“The lasting legacy I want to leave on this one is not a loss in here to Arizona.”

Today, Johnson, Toby Bailey and J.R. Henderson, who won their 100th game on Thursday, will be honored in a pregame salute, then say goodbye to Pauley.

Those three are the last playing link to the 1995 national-title team and have been through a first-round loss to Princeton the next season, Jim Harrick’s firing and the suspension-stained experience of this season.

“I’m glad I was able to finish it out, glad I stayed in school,” Bailey said. “And everything’s worked out. I had a lot of fun here.

“I think all three of us know how important it is, especially with everybody leaving early nowadays. It is real special to graduate and go through your Senior Day.

“We’ve been through so much here in our four years. If we went through the whole time and it was fine and dandy, it wouldn’t have been as special.”

Johnson said he vividly recalls the emotions of watching Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and George Zidek go through their own senior farewells in 1995 against Oregon.

“Ed kissed the floor and Tyus took a bow--yeah, that game was crazy, it was just so hyped and so live in here,” Johnson said. “You can’t lose those kinds of games, the last game, Pauley . . . on sacred ground, you can’t lose that kind of game.”

Even though UCLA wanted to be the team that ended the No. 2-ranked Wildcats’ quest for a perfect Pac-10 record, the Trojans’ shocking victory did not dampen the Bruins’ eagerness.

Arizona, which beat UCLA, 87-75, to open the conference season in January, has not won at Pauley since the 1992-93 season, which was also the last time the Wildcats swept the Bruins.

“It’s one of those classic games,” Bailey said. “Nobody else I’d rather play in the last game than them.”

Said Arizona Coach Lute Olson, who is 2-5 against the Bruin seniors: “It seems like it’s been forever. It’ll seem strange next year not to see them out there.”

Meanwhile, there are significant NCAA tournament issues up for grabs--and not only for UCLA, which could use a big victory to gain some momentum heading into the tournament after a 5-4 lull over its last nine games.

Last year, Arizona lost back-to-back games to Stanford and California to finish the regular season, then ran off six NCAA victories to win the school’s first national title.

But if the Wildcats, who hadn’t lost since Dec. 23 at Florida State, should lose again today, it could possibly knock them out of their long-assumed No. 1 seeding in the West Regional.

Olson, though, Friday downplayed the significance of Thursday’s defeat, of losing the shot at an unprecedented 18-0 Pac-10 record, and of the significance of losing or gaining momentum in March.

“What’s the difference between a win and a loss? A lucky bounce, and us failing to convert free throws,” Olson said, referring to the strange bounce off the back of the rim on Adam Spanich’s three-pointer to win it in overtime and blown one-and-one free-throw attempts by Miles Simon and Jason Terry.

“I don’t think it’ll make a bit of difference in terms of the intensity of the game tomorrow.”

The Wildcats survived narrow escapes against Oregon State and Arizona State in the last month, and Olson said that his fast-paced team, built around perimeter players Michael Bibby, Michael Dickerson and Simon, suffers if it isn’t shooting well.

“It’s not a case with us of being a dominant team,” Olson said. “We’re a team where everything has to be clicking. We don’t have a Walton or a Jabbar, the people who could dominate the basketball game.”

Simon, a Southern California native who has publicly talked about celebrating on the Pauley floor after a victory, went through a one-for-eight shooting night in the USC loss.

It will be Simon’s last game at Pauley too.

“I don’t recall him being as ineffective as he was last night,” Olson said. “[But] he’s always stepped up big for the big games. No one is more disappointed with his performance last night than he was. And usually that doesn’t bode well with whoever he’s playing in the next game.”

The Bruins, though, have unabashedly drawn motivation from Simon’s pregame comments.

“I’m not going to stoop to Miles’ level,” Bailey said. “I’ll let my game do my talking.”