All That Remains Is to Nit-Pick

They are trying not to think about it, but they are being forced to more and more. Too many questions about it from the media. Too much reality of their own.

The UCLA Bruins in the National Invitation Tournament.

Oh joy.

“I wouldn’t play,” Earl Watson, the point guard and team captain, said Saturday after the latest contribution to the cause, a 99-84 embarrassment against No. 4 Arizona. “No one would play. That’s not our goal.”

Their destiny, that’s another matter.

It’s not that UCLA lost, hardly a surprise given the way it played, or, rather, didn’t play Thursday night at Arizona State, or the quality of the opponent Saturday. It’s that the Bruins got hammered for the second game in a row near the end of the season, at a time when the NCAA tournament selection committee gives extra weight to performance, and barely lasted 10 minutes against a team down two starters, including a candidate for Pacific 10 player of the year.

Loren Woods, the center who has helped lead the Wildcats (23-4, 12-1 in the Pac-10) to first place in the conference, was out because of back spasms, a decision that came before tipoff. Richard Jefferson, Arizona’s small forward, is expected to be out approximately two more weeks because of a fractured foot. UCLA, meanwhile, was simply out of it.

The Bruins committed 21 turnovers--17 in the first half, usually leading to an Arizona fast break. They trailed by double digits 10 minutes into the game and by 16 with two minutes left before intermission, even though a third Arizona starter, Gilbert Arenas, went to the bench about five minutes earlier with his second foul. The Wildcat lead at halftime was 51-30.

UCLA (13-11, 4-8), despite 27 points by freshman Jason Kapono, never got close from there. It only got embarrassed, having been swept on the road by the Arizona schools for the first time since 1989 while giving up 203 points in the process, the most in Bruin history for back-to-back games. Those chants of “NIT! NIT!” in the closing minutes from the McKale Center faithful probably didn’t help either.

Unless it comes to cushion the blow, that is. The Bruins, of course, are going on the theory that they’re in contention for an NCAA bid, which is true. Except that to get to 18 victories, the number they are confident would clinch a spot in the field of 64, they need to go 5-1 the rest of the way, with games ahead against Oregon and at Stanford and two other teams UCLA has already lost to, Washington and California.

In other words, if the Bruins thought they dug big holes at Arizona State and Arizona . . .

“It’s hard to do,” guard Ray Young said. “But that’s what we’re up against. So we’ve just got to do it.”

Or else.

The NIT.

The Bruins were struggling to grasp the concept Saturday, even as it became more realistic. Just considering the possibility took some doing, partly because they didn’t want to and partly because it didn’t seem right.

It didn’t seem fun, either, leading to the obvious question:

If they struggled to get up for a critical game at Arizona State, what kind of excitement level will they have for an opening-round game in the consolation tournament, the first such event for the Bruins since 1988?

“Excited?” guard Ray Young said. “I don’t think anybody would be excited, especially at UCLA. Nobody comes to UCLA to be excited about going to the NIT.

“I don’t know if I could speak for the whole team. But that hurts. The tradition you come in to at UCLA, you don’t even think about going to the NIT. I’m just struck by it. I don’t know what to say.

“I’m definitely not excited to play in it. So if they [the administration] says no [to an NIT invitation], that’s fine. I definitely wouldn’t be disappointed. But if they say go, we’d play hard.”

Added Matt Barnes: “No one comes to UCLA to play in the NIT. We come to UCLA to play in the tournament. So it would be depressing.”

Sort of like their week.

“Right now, I’m just trying to be optimistic,” Watson said in the wake of the combined defeats by 44 points. “There’s enough negative going on with this team right now with these losses.”