Bruins Can’t Reach Summitt Yet

UCLA is not Tennessee.

Sometimes you need to test and experiment to verify the obvious, so the UCLA women’s basketball team spent two hours Sunday discovering what we already knew.

UCLA is not Tennessee.

Not quite. Not yet.

UCLA has skilled players. Tennessee has talented, skilled players. And lots of them.

UCLA’s players seem to enjoy playing for their coach. Tennessee’s player’s have no choice but to respect their coach.

That’s why the No. 5-ranked Lady Vols could come to California and beat the No. 4 Bruins, 88-77, in Pauley Pavilion without playing at a level that meets Coach Pat Summitt’s rigid demands.

“Not a really impressive day for Tennessee,” she called it.

It could have been a landmark day for the Bruins had they won. Instead it was just another step. There’s no real map to show the exact locations of these two programs. Suffice it to say Tennessee is there, UCLA isn’t.

The Bruins aren’t too far away, though. They deserved to be on the same court as the Lady Vols on Sunday, and it wouldn’t come as a shock if they meet again in the late stages of the NCAA tournament in March.

“I felt like our team felt like we could have won--we should have won, actually,” UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier said. “That was a good feeling. I don’t think in the past that we’ve really felt like that before. So I think this team is here.”

UCLA will get plenty of other chances to prove it with a schedule that includes Louisiana Tech on Sunday and Connecticut on Dec. 23.

“I think we can play with them,” Olivier said. “I’m comfortable saying that, and I think our team can back that up.”

She looked slightly annoyed that the question had even come up. But she’ll know her program is where she wants it to be when they no longer ask it.

It was clear from the first minute Sunday that Tennessee was the better team.

Tennessee won with aggression. The Lady Vols dismantled UCLA’s press and beat the Bruins down the court throughout the game. They were in attack mode on defense, bodying up and sending so many double-teams the Bruins must have felt like they were trying to run their offense inside a crowded subway car during rush hour.

The Bruins looked tentative at the beginning. Even their first few baskets were reluctant to go through the hoop, bouncing around the rim several times as if they were waiting for permission before finally deciding to drop.

The Bruins are a great passing team, but they couldn’t use that to their advantage Sunday because they missed too many open shots.

They rebounded well on the offensive end in the first half and couldn’t convert those opportunities either.

And after charging into the second half to cut a nine-point deficit down to one, the Bruins didn’t finish the job.

They racked up six team fouls on the Lady Vols in the first eight minutes. The Bruins would start shooting free throws the next time Tennessee so much as reached in on the perimeter.

They needed to force the issue. The easiest way to complete a comeback and disrupt another team’s momentum is to get some cheap, easy points at the line. Instead, UCLA was content to settle for jump shots and didn’t draw another foul for more than five minutes.

Tennessee--using a lineup that featured freshmen Kara Lawson, April McDivitt and Gwen Jackson--pulled away down the stretch.

That shows the difference between the two schools. UCLA’s senior class of Maylana Martin, Janae Hubbard, Marie Philman, Takiyah Jackson, Carly Funicello and the currently injured Erica Gomez is supposed to represent the evolution of the program and take it to the next level.

On Sunday they couldn’t beat the latest wave of freshmen at Tennessee’s talent factory that bolstered holdovers such as Tamika Catchings.

Tennessee almost automatically makes the checklist of any top high school player. Lawson hated the Volunteers as a kid growing up in Alexandria, Va., because they used to beat Virginia in the NCAA tournament every year. But when it was time to start thinking about colleges the respect she had for the program and the coaching staff overruled any remaining personal feelings.

UCLA has progressed to the point that it can attract recruits away from Tennessee, such as freshman Nicole Kaczmarski. The next step is to make Tennessee happy to steal players from UCLA.

“I think the key is players,” Summitt said.

“It’s just a matter of selling the program. When you do that . . . you can improve the talent pool, you improve the program. You have to stay at it. Be persistent in the recruiting.”

Olivier has plenty to sell. UCLA has a better city, a better climate, even better school colors than Tennessee (name one person has ever looked great in orange).

But for the moment Summitt has the only thing that matters: a better team.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com