Turn Around, It’s UCLA

Welcome back to UCLA’s magical mystery tour.

In Saturday’s installment, the unranked Bruins confounded their critics once again by knocking off No. 1 and unbeaten Stanford, 79-73, before a stunned crowd of 7,391 at Maples Pavilion and a national TV audience.

Yes, these are the same Bruins who lost by 29 to California less than 48 hours earlier; the same team that fell to Cal State Northridge this season; the same team whose coach’s job status is forever in limbo.

Leave it to a Stanford player to add a dash of mythological perspective to the craziness.

“They’re a tragic team,” guard Ryan Mendez said. “How can they play like they did against Cal, then come in here and play like they did today?”

Obviously, Mendez isn’t a history major. If he were, he would know that these Bruins play at their rock-solid best when everyone thinks they’re on the verge of collapse. Saturday’s victory was merely an encore of last season’s shocker, when unranked UCLA rolled into Maples and rubbed out the No. 1 Cardinal.

With Saturday’s victory, the Bruins improved to 13-6 overall, 7-2 in Pacific 10 Conference play. Stanford, which was the nation’s only undefeated team, dropped to 20-1 and 8-1.

That UCLA won ensures there will be plenty of confused top-25 voters this week. The Bruins haven’t been ranked all season, and their loss to Cal was an embarrassment. Yet how can anyone ignore a team that did what UCLA did Saturday?

“We don’t expect anything from the top-25 voters,” point guard Earl Watson said. “We beat ‘SC, and we couldn’t figure out why we weren’t in the top 25. But we don’t even care anymore. Because it only matters if we win the Pac-10 and get into the [NCAA] tournament, and do good things from that point. Don’t give us any extra credit; just keep giving us motivation by not voting for us.”

The Bruins love the role of scrappy underdog, and few players embody that more than guard Billy Knight, who learned five minutes before the game he would be making his fifth start of the season.

Knight drained a three-point shot seven seconds into the game, then never looked back, finishing with career highs in points (22) and backslaps in the locker room.

Coach Steve Lavin gave Knight the nod over Jason Flowers because Knight played so well during the Bay Area trip last season. Not only that, but when the Bruins scrimmaged Friday, Knight knocked down every shot in sight.

“For him to get 22 today, it’s like, ‘Who is he? Where did he come from?’ ” said Watson, who shares an off-campus apartment with Knight. “But people don’t understand that [Friday] Billy hit 10 threes in a row. Dick Vitale had to tap one of his friends, like, ‘Do you see this kid?’ Billy was just going off.”

Just as important, Knight did a good job of putting the defensive clamps on Stanford’s Casey Jacobsen, who made four of 18 shots from the field and saw his team’s dream of an undefeated season vanish.

“I thought we could do it,” Jacobsen said. “Maybe it wasn’t realistic. But if any team could have gone undefeated, it would have been us.”

Stanford had its chances, clawing back from a 40-37 halftime deficit to forge a 55-55 tie on a dunk by Justin Davis with 10:08 to play. The Bruins answered with an 11-0 run during the next three minutes that quieted the crowd.

The Cardinal had one flurry left, cutting the lead to 74-71 on a three-point basket by Mike McDonald with 48 seconds remaining. But UCLA clinched the victory at the foul line, getting two free throws from Matt Barnes, and one each from Knight, Watson and Jason Kapono.

In addition to Knight, three other UCLA starters scored in double figures: Watson (20), Kapono (14) and Dan Gadzuric (10).

“We showed incredible poise when Stanford made their runs,” Lavin said. “We kept our composure and continued to execute. Had some great defensive efforts.

“From the end of the Cal game, I was really impressed with our kids’ maturity in terms of focusing on Stanford, putting that game [the 92-63 loss to Cal] behind us. Learning from it, but putting it behind us and moving forward.”

Lavin chalked up the turnaround to lessons learned. He said his team is merely progressing as it becomes more seasoned. But Saturday’s Bruins looked nothing like the team that was so overmatched two nights earlier.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Barnes conceded. “We lost to the team we should have beat, and then we come in here and beat the No. 1 team. Of course, people are going to look at it as a little strange. But it happens. It’s an up-and-down season.”

And the next twist, at USC on Thursday, is anyone’s guess.

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Bouncing Back

How UCLA has responded to its worst defeats under Coach Steve Lavin:

THE WORST FIVE

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48 at Stanford 109, UCLA 61 (1996-97 season) Next: Defeated California, 64-56 41 North Carolina 109, UCLA 68 (1997-98) Next: Defeated Alaska Anchorage, 92-68 36 at Duke 120, UCLA 84 (1997-98) Next: Defeated Washington State, 78-75 29 at Arizona State 104, UCLA 75 (1999-2000) Next: Lost to Arizona, 99-84 29 at California 92, UCLA 63 (2000-01) Next: Defeated Stanford, 79-73

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