Bruins Put Themselves in Bad Spot

True story: UCLA’s team breakfast Friday at a suburban Seattle hotel was held about 20 yards from the Hemlock Room. Insert punch line here.

It was that kind of morning. The Bruins awoke hours after a one-point loss to Washington, a team projected to finish near the bottom of the Pacific 10 Conference standings, to find things really were that bad . . . and could get worse.

“It seemed like an NCAA tournament loss,” swingman Billy Knight said of the emotional cost. “Like elimination.”

Said forward Sean Farnham: “It’s one of those things where you come back in the locker room and it just hits you. Just hits you.”

And knocks you out?

The 24th-ranked Bruins, 8-3 and probably about to be voted out of the Associated Press top 25 for the first time since February 1997, need to prove otherwise. They get their first chance today against Washington State, which would normally be encouraging because the Cougars are 5-5 and just lost to USC by 22 points, except that Washington was reeling when UCLA arrived in Seattle.

The events of Thursday night at KeyArena in the conference opener were all the more damning for the Bruins because the Huskies looked as beatable as ever. Washington made only 39.9% of its shots and 52.4% of its free throws, was outrebounded and had only one player, Deon Luton, score in double figures.

In the Huskies’ favor, they were playing UCLA.

The undisciplined play that long ago became commonplace for the Bruins led to the late-game meltdown that ruined what should have been a great opportunity for a 2-0 conference start against lesser teams, made all the more noteworthy because both victories would have come on the road. Moreover, the early success would have come on the same weekend that either Stanford or Arizona lost, since those teams play today at Palo Alto.

There went that theory, misplaced somewhere with Earl Watson’s ability to see he was about to be called for a critical five-second violation with one minute to play, or wildly flung aside like Jerome Moiso’s 18-footer on the next UCLA possession, with plenty of time left on the shot clock. The Bruins are 0-1 and hurting.

What remains to be seen is how much. The issue is all the more pressing given the timing, what with the shaky recent past and with the next four games each presenting a specific challenge: today at Washington State, a contest that suddenly comes with a lot of pressure; Wednesday at USC, a rivalry game; Jan. 15 at North Carolina, the chance to make a statement on national TV; Jan. 20 against Arizona in Westwood, a potential conference showdown.

It doesn’t entirely stop there, either. UCLA gets Arizona State two days later, then heads back on the road for two more games, finally the end to a stretch in which it plays six of eight away from Pauley Pavilion. This is no time for emotional healing.

“Tomorrow’s a must win,” Watson conceded before the Bruins left for Pullman. “SC’s a must win. And not even talking about the conference, just to have a nice record for the tournament, North Carolina is definitely a must win.

“It [the Washington loss] puts us in a bad position in the Pac-10. It’s only 0-1. But it means we have to pull one out somewhere else.”

An unexpected one, in other words. That means against Stanford or Arizona, much the way the Bruins last season lost to Oregon State, bound for a 13-14 finish, and beat Arizona.

“We’re obviously disappointed the way we performed on the court,” Farnham said. “The main thing is to get rid of that game, make sure it doesn’t linger.

“That’s something we obviously have to be tested on. It’s, ‘Can we take this loss, get rid of it and come back 48 hours later and play another Pac-10 team?’ . . . Now we’ve dug ourselves a hole. We’ve got to get a win somewhere where it’s not expected.”

Nominations?

Who said “Washington State”?

Always with a punch line.

*

UCLA at Washington St.

3 today

WOMEN

UCLA 90

Washington 54

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USC at

Washington

1 today, FSN2

WOMEN

USC 71

Wash. St. 61

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