These Bruins Have Been Here Before

They can do it with cream pie on their foreheads, a banana peel on their heels, and two fingers poking their eyes.

They can do it with a dangling coach, suspended players, and a season in the drink.

They can do it in January in the Carolinas, February in Maples, March in the madness.

Before a bemused gathering that sighed as loud as it cheered, the UCLA basketball team did it again Saturday with a 79-57 pounding of 16th-ranked Alabama in the Wooden Classic.

What else?

The resurrection shuffle.

“It’s sad, I know,” said Jason Kapono.

Sad. Old. Tired. Silly. Needless.

And intoxicating.

What happened Saturday is exactly why, after six years worth of roundhouses, our arms are tired and Steve Lavin is not.

“Everybody says we’re terrible and fires our coach,” says Rico Hines, shrugging. “Then we win.”

Watching the hustling Bruins turn the Alabama eyes crimson reminded us, they don’t just win, they do it with heroes and villains and drama. Those of us who have accused Lavin of not possessing a playbook, we’re right. He obviously operates off a script.

It might not play in Lexington or Chapel Hill, but it works in this town, and it certainly worked Saturday.

The Bruins, once ranked in the top five, stepped onto the Arrowhead Pond floor with losses to Ball State and Pepperdine and an entirely-too-tough win over Division I infant UC Riverside.

John Wooden was in the stands, an old coach preparing for one more humiliation.

Arizona was in another locker room, a Pacific 10 Conference rival preparing to chuckle after blowing out Purdue in the day’s opener.

The Bruins didn’t have starting and injured freshman point guard Cedric Bozeman.

Their other freshman point guard, Ryan Walcott, had spent the week mourning the death of the grandfather who raised him.

Their star power forward, Matt Barnes, had been muttering about missed shots and lost minutes.

The last time they played in the Classic, last season against Georgia Tech, they suffered one of the more embarrassing losses of Lavin’s career.

And this time, he was facing the well-respected Mark Gottfried, another former UCLA assistant who publicly backed Jim Harrick over Lavin during that tumultuous autumn of 1996.

Pull out another eulogy. Prepare another pie. This one was going to be pathetic.

And it was.

“We were pathetic,” said Gottfried.

Who would have thought?

Well, if you have watched even six minutes of UCLA basketball in the last six years, you would have known.

Lavin’s most challenging game? One of his best.

He adjusted to the lack of a point guard--Bozeman won’t be back from his knee injury for a month--by using virtually everyone as a point guard.

He responded to his team’s awful late defense against Pepperdine and Ball State by--gasp--actually changing the defense. A full-court press is now a half-court push.

“In those earlier games, testing my kids, I put them in a position to fail, and it was my fault,” Lavin said. “But I’d rather learn now than in the middle of the conference season.”

After Alabama shot 29.7% from the field with 17 turnovers, it was Lavin who looked like the savvy coach while Harrick-soundalike Gottfried looked like the overmatched slicker.

All this, and, after playing 95 minutes and missing 14 shots, Rico Hines finally made his first basket of the season.

Even the play was typical of the game, a charging baseline drive that ended in two Alabama bodies falling while Hines rose above them for a short jumper.

“Everybody lost themselves to the game,” Hines said. “Nobody cared about who brought the ball upcourt or who shot or who passed.”

And, oh yeah, the Bruins’ player of the game award? They gave it to Walcott, who, after spending two days mourning in bed, showed up to hit both of his shots and add three assists.

“We’ve been here before,” Hines said with a grin.

Hines, who looks older than Lavin, has been here for five of the coach’s six years.

“This is the best team I’ve been on, clearly,” he said.

Kapono, who took over with eight points in a late three-minute span to clinch the game, has been here for three years.

“This is easily our most skilled team,” he said. “And we’re deeper than any team we’ve had before.”

So Saturday was the first real step toward a season that can finally end somewhere past the Sweet 16, right?

You know better.

Even when Bozeman comes back, there is suspicion that the Bruins still don’t have a point guard, seeing as the kid didn’t really play the position at Mater Dei High and is more comfortable in a shooter’s role.

They also lack a dominating center, as Dan Gadzuric only excels in fits and starts.

Then there is Barnes, who led the team through the tourney last year and must resume that role if they are to survive.

And there is always Lavin.

At times, his hot freshmen seem too cool for their own good. Can he become their coach after spending several years being their friend?

At times, the offense still seems to run only one clear play for Kapono, a backdoor pass. Can Lavin get his best player in the flow more often?

“This is still a team in search of its identity,” Lavin said.

As for the coach, we already know him well, and welcome him back for another nutty winter. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.