It’s Trojans Who Go to Head of the Classic

This is your life, Steve Lavin: Bill Walton and Dick Vitale are leading the chorus of critics, and the bandwagon is filling fast. Your team missed 45 of 63 shots Saturday in losing to Georgia Tech, 72-67, in a display of basketball so ugly it could be called intramural. Your team lost for the third time in four games, its national ranking a fading memory and a winning record suddenly a challenge instead of a given. Your on-court leader, your senior point guard, wondered aloud whether he should remove himself from the lineup.

Oh, and your UCLA Bruins were hustled off the court at the Arrowhead Pond so the second game of the Wooden Classic could start, the one featuring the USC Trojans. The nationally ranked USC Trojans.

So, after the loss to unranked Georgia Tech, Lavin took the heat for a veteran UCLA team that again failed in the fundamentals of offense and defense.

“All those things are my fault,” Lavin said. “It’s my responsibility as head coach. When my team plays like this, I’m not doing the job. I’m not getting it done.”

The Bruins insist things must get better, and maybe they will. The last time the Bruins started a season 2-3, they rallied to qualify for the NCAA tournament. Then they lost in the first round to Princeton.

Earl Watson, the point guard, had eight turnovers and said “maybe I’m hurting my team” by playing with a torn tendon in his right little finger. He also said the Bruins had done absolutely nothing to shut up their critics.

“Right now, we’re not very good,” he said. “Critics have every right to speak and talk. We open up the opportunity for them to say what they say. We can’t complain about anything.”

The Bruins missed their first 14 shots. They shot a comically low 29%. The basketball gods couldn’t have justified it, but the Bruins almost won.

Georgia Tech (4-1) did not make a field goal in the final four minutes and still the Yellow Jackets led, 69-64, with 46 seconds left. But Jason Kapono made a three-pointer--his only basket of the second half--with 32 seconds left, and on the ensuing press Ryan Bailey tipped a Georgia Tech pass to Kapono. However, Watson missed the shot that would have tied the score and Dan Gadzuric missed two tips.

“I just missed a layup. I lost the game,” Watson said. “I’ll put the last 30 seconds on me.”

Said Kapono: “We just missed a shot. That’s bound to happen. . . . It’s what happened before that killed us.”

Before, as in the rest of the second half. Before, as in the rest of the afternoon. Before, as in a loss to Cal State Northridge that appears less of an upset with each game the Bruins play.

“When we’re at our best, we can play with Kansas and Kentucky,” Lavin said. “When we’re not, we’ve shown we can lose to anybody in the country.”

Lavin and his players sometimes appear to use the words “Kansas and Kentucky” as a crutch. Yes, the Bruins played well in the first two games of the season, losing to Kansas and beating Kentucky.

The Bruins, 4-0 in previous Wooden Classics, have gotten worse, losing to Northridge and Georgia Tech and squeaking past UC Santa Barbara, but Watson heatedly denied the possibility that the Bruins played over their heads against Kansas and Kentucky and are playing at their true level now.

“We didn’t play well against Kansas and Kentucky and say it was luck,” Watson said. “This team has the potential, and we can achieve all that potential if we play harder and play smarter.”

Said guard Ray Young: “We just give away games, basically. We can play with the top five or top 10 schools in the nation--or we can get beat by schools that aren’t even ranked.”

Young is not whining. The Bruins did give this game away.

The Yellow Jackets shot 24% in the first half. Gadzuric did a nice job denying the ball to Georgia Tech’s 6-foot-11 center, Alvin Jones, who scored one basket before fouling out. So the Yellow Jacket offense was placed in the hands of 5-foot-11 point guard Tony Akins, who drove the lane uncontested and either scored (a game-high 28 points) or passed out for a three-pointer. Georgia Tech ran an entirely predictable offense in the second half and still shot 56%, making up a 31-22 deficit.

“They had a 5-foot-8 guy scoring layups. That shouldn’t happen,” Kapono said.

“They were overplaying the passing lanes, and that left the middle wide open,” Akins said.

The Bruins are not quick enough, or dedicated enough, to rotate properly on defense for 40 minutes. Not quick enough, or smart enough, to pass the ball on offense until the proper shot presents itself. Not quick enough to stop the bandwagon of critics from rolling on.

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WOODEN CLASSIC

DIANE PUCIN

Wooden is in better shape than the Bruins are. D2

SORRY, COACH

He wishes the Wizard hadn’t seen this. D13

HURRY BACK

Trepagnier is missed by unbeaten Trojans. D13