Bruins Fail Real Test

As night fell on another UCLA basketball embarrassment Saturday, the Gonzaga gym rats hopped to midcourt, gathered in a circle, and locked arms.

“We told each other, ‘Remember the feeling,’ ” guard Matt Santangelo said.

UCLA fans, at least the handful remaining at Pauley Pavilion after the Bulldogs whipped the Bruins by 16, needed no such ceremony.

They remember the feeling, all right.

They could put it into two words.

Detroit Mercy.

That upset loss in the first round of the NCAA tournament occurred a season ago.

Or, depending on how you look at it, only five games ago.

In the wake of the Bruins’ 59-43 loss to the weary, overmatched, outmanned Bulldogs, there is little choice but to look at this as a basketball program in distress.

Sitting side by side in blue jeans on the Bruin bench Saturday were Matt Barnes (ineligible because of academics) and JaRon Rush (suspended because of alleged ties to an agent).

Playing in front of them were eight guys who looked equally out of place.

Gonzaga threw up the same sort of matchup zone that Detroit Mercy used last spring.

The Bruins threw up their hands.

Gonzaga ran the same sort of moving and screening offense that all smart teams run.

The Bruins reacted like all perpetually confused teams react.

It was an afternoon that could be shrunk into a snapshot.

Second half, during the Bulldogs’ 22-6 run, Earl Watson throws up a wild three-point attempt. He rebounds the miss, and immediately throws up a wild bank shot.

At the other end of the court, during a scramble for a loose ball, skinny Mark Spink pulls it away from two strong Bruins and knocks it out of bounds off them.

On the ensuing inbounds play, small Santangelo throws a perfect pass to clunky Zach Gourde for an open layup over some of the best athletes in the country.

This was not, as you may have guessed, a loss to the same Gonzaga group that scrapped to the NCAA’s Elite Eight last year.

The coach is gone. Two of the best starters are gone. Much of their energy was gone after losing on the road against two other top 25 teams in the past week.

This, however, was the exact same UCLA team that we have seen time and again under the increasingly troubled reign of Steve Lavin.

The Bruins had 10 days to prepare for this game, yet they played as if they learned about it 10 minutes earlier.

The Bruins had an entire off-season to learn about putting up a good fight against a hustling overachiever, yet they seemingly learned nothing.

Gonzaga’s last game, three days ago, was also decided by a 16-point margin. Only, the opponent was Temple and Coach John Chaney. And it was the Bulldogs who lost by 16.

Well, um, UCLA is no Temple.

Just listen to Santangelo, who was last seen diving into a pile of Bruins and coming up with the ball, which turned into a pass, which turned into a wide-open shot, again and again.

The Gonzaga senior guard was asked about the UCLA mood.

“They just didn’t play with a lot of fire,” he said. “They were kind of melancholy out there.”

He was asked about the UCLA offense against his defense.

“They just kind of stood around,” he said. “When you do that, it makes it very easy to run that kind of zone. We didn’t expect them to be standing around, but we’re not complaining.”

He was asked about the UCLA defense against his offense.

“You could tell a lot about it by how they played us on our ‘down’ screens,” he said, referring to picks set near the baseline. “Sometimes they would only half-switch, or not switch at all. Sometimes only one guy would talk, or nobody would talk.”

When asked if he was surprised at the victory, Santangelo shrugged.

“We know we can win games if we play our way,” he said.

That seems to be the secret to beating Lavin’s Bruins. Play smart, play your way, and UCLA cannot adjust.

“Any time the team doesn’t play well, I’ll make it my fault,” Lavin said afterward. “The buck stops here. I didn’t do a good enough job preparing my team.”

While saying he had no excuses, Lavin nonetheless referred to the fact that he had only eight players available.

However, one of the reasons for that lands directly in his lap.

While Barnes could be academically eligible by next week, and while the investigation into Rush’s alleged ties with an agent is only beginning, any young player’s problems that do not involve injuries reflect on the coach who recruited him.

While it is impossible for Lavin or any coach to predict a player’s success with academics or common sense, anyone who has ever tried to figure out the mind of an 18-year-old knows there are warning signs.

To Lavin’s credit, he has assembled mostly good guys and students and citizens.

But the loss of Rush, who came here only after reneging on a promise to Kansas when he was told he might not start there, would be a blow not only for the program, but the coach who runs it.

Lavin doesn’t need many more of those blows. This is, remember, the first season where the program belongs totally to him, where he can be truly evaluated from start to finish.

This is his “But Can He Coach?” season.

The early returns are in, and the answer isn’t a positive one.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.