The Laugher Is on UCLA

Showing for the fourth time this season that they will swoon at the mere sight of a ranked basketball team, the No. 6 UCLA women were flattened by No. 1 Connecticut, 106-64, Thursday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion.

And it was actually two points worse than that.

With 5:20 to go and the Huskies already up, 96-54, Connecticut forward Swin Cash turned in basketball’s equivalent of a Wrong Way Roy Riegels run by drilling a 10-foot jump shot--into UCLA’s basket.

That added a little levity to the otherwise mundane proceedings, viewed by a capacity crowd of 10,027.

UCLA, of course, failed to see the humor in it. Coach Kathy Olivier’s team, the consensus preseason pick to win the Pacific 10 championship, already has been defeated by the following ranked teams this season:

* Tennessee, 88-77.

* Louisiana Tech, 82-64.

* Rutgers, 72-46.

In its last two games, UCLA has been outscored by a combined 178-110.

The most recent embarrassment came against perhaps the nation’s best team.

Connecticut limited UCLA senior center Maylana Martin to two points (0 for 7 from the floor), after she had been in double figures in 37 consecutive games, and in 91 of 95 career games.

UCLA has virtually everyone back from last season’s 26-8 team that won a share of the Pac-10 title and advanced to the NCAA’s Elite Eight. What’s going on here?

“We have the same team back, but we don’t have the same chemistry,” Martin said.

Geno Auriemma, the Connecticut coach, was asked the same question about his team. He acknowledged afterward that this 8-0 Husky team “has a chance” to match his 1995 NCAA title team, which went 35-0.

The Huskies had no trouble with UCLA (5-4), which was stuck in a 2-3 zone defense for most of Thursday’s game, protecting Martin, who was tagged with her fourth foul with 15:45 left.

But by that point, Connecticut’s highly regarded freshman from Indiana, Kennitra Johnson, had all but broken the game open.

Coming off the bench, the 6-foot-2 Johnson carried Connecticut from a 24-13 lead to 45-23 advantage during an impressive six-minute stretch late in the first half in which she scored 14 points, including four three-point field goals.

For the game, Johnson was five for five on three-point shots, finishing with 17 points. Svetlana Abrosimova added 19 points, 13 rebounds, nine assists and two steals. Connecticut was 11 for 19 on three-point shots, most of them uncontested.

Olivier had no answers during the game, or after, her sentence trailing off as she said: “I honestly feel we’re a successful team when we make baskets, but when you play a team like UConn and you get open looks early in the game and miss your shots . . . “

Much of the postgame conversation was about Cash’s moment of madness, when she put in a wide-open 10-foot jump shot off a missed free throw by Janae Hubbard. Cash was summoned to the interview room but declined. “She has to catch a plane home for Christmas,” reporters were told.

“It was a fine shot,” Auriemma quipped. “She got a wide-open look, and she drained it.”

Said teammate Paige Sauer: “Swin gets teased more than anyone on the team--she’ll really get it now.”

For the record, Hubbard was credited with Cash’s basket.