This Was a Sorry UCLA Performance

Sorry you had to see this, Coach Wooden. Sorry there was no way to spare you.

This is, after all, the John R. Wooden Classic, so that means that, if only out of courtesy, you need to sit in the stands and smile bravely. Sadly, we all know that the only thing classic about the first game of this event was the man’s name on it.

Utah and USC played a good second game. They are both well coached, both nationally ranked, so that probably made you feel somewhat better. But we all know where your heart is, where it should be after 10 national championships. And so, we can imagine how difficult it was to bleed Bruin blue Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond, when your team was participating in--and losing--one of the worst basketball games played in this hemisphere in the last 25 years.

OK, so perhaps we exaggerate. There have probably been a few worse in small-school prep ball up around Fresno.

We are sorry that the big draw for this event was your school and its tradition-rich basketball team. Of course, that tradition became rich because of you. Now, you have to watch a team that carries the same colors and letters, but misses its first 14 shots, plays more playground basketball than they do on playgrounds and ends up losing its third game of the season with a season-opening schedule that would even embarrass Kansas State’s football team.

Hey, either things are a total mess in Westwood, or Northridge and Georgia Tech will be playing in the Final Four. This is the same Georgia Tech team that prompted last year’s coach, Bobby Cremins, to apologize upon departing the job and leaving it to newcomer Paul Hewitt. Cremins said he had left the talent cupboard empty.

So what does that make the Bruin cupboard? Or might it be the guy arranging the plates and dishes?

As much as you certainly enjoyed watching him play, so sorry, Coach, that the best player on the floor turned out to be a 5-foot-11 guard from Georgia Tech, Tony Akins. He scored 28 points, assisted on five more baskets and pretty much ran the whole show right to the end, when Tech held off some final Bruin stumbling around and won, 72-67.

You wonder, Coach, if Akins, a junior out of Lilburn, Ga., was ever even on the recruiting radar screen for UCLA. I think we both know better.

But in this one, Akins’ big-name counterpart in the powder blue and white jersey, Earl Watson--he of the national reputation and likely pro future--answered with 16 points, five fouls and eight turnovers. There were times, Coach, when the team Georgia Tech put on the floor looked like five kids from Christian Brothers Boarding School in Dubuque. But they somehow beat this team of mighty Dan Gadzuric, 6-11 and as nimble as a riverboat, and Jason Kapono, who had one foot in the pro draft before smartly pulling back and who shredded the Georgia Tech defense with two-of-10 shooting.

Kapono can shoot free throws--he made all 12 Saturday and has made all 28 this season--so maybe that will be enough to excite David Falk.

It was also too bad, Coach, that you had to see things such as Watson, trying to break a press by dribbling the ball between his legs and dribbling it off his defender’s leg instead. Or that you had to see your team, unable to get the ball across the 10-second line, wasting a timeout to retain possession. Maybe this was really the Lakers or Trail Blazers putting on this press, and we didn’t notice.

We also feel badly that you might have heard the Bruin fan yelling at Akins during a crucial free-throw set in the second half. We know how you dislike bad sportsmanship.

Akins responded by calmly sinking two.

Mostly, Coach, we’re sorry that the Pond, which you hoped would be filled with 18,000 people--thereby doing great things for a charity so close to your heart, the Special Olympics--had all sorts of empty seats. Heck, empty sections. But maybe it turned out all right, because they announced an attendance of 15,286. At least lots of people bought tickets, even if they weren’t interested enough to come.

Can’t really blame them. They aren’t quite tuned into the fact yet that, very likely, USC will be the basketball team in Los Angeles this season and would have been worth the price of a ticket here. It was a hard sell for fans, who are confused. Gee, UCLA is playing basketball at the Pond. Didn’t UCLA used to be good? Should we buy tickets? Or would it be more exciting to go to the mall?

Anyway, Coach, we’re glad you were there, even if you had to suffer. You remind us of the great UCLA past, and how it still might be, someday. That’s not a bad thing, especially when looking at the alternative, the present.