UCLA Pulls Rank Again

Amid flying bottles and crashing bodies and a wonderfully, wildly loud L.A., a simple gesture said it all.

The moment UCLA finished its 85-76 victory over USC Thursday, Bruin guard Ray Young, while holding the ball, shook his head.

Just shook his head.

Uh-uh. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

You can imagine it and I can predict it and everyone in this town can feel it, but when it comes down to two hours in a basketball arena--even one as nuts for USC as the Sports Arena was Thursday--it just isn’t happening.

The Trojans aren’t ready to own this town’s basketball yet.

Because the Bruins aren’t ready to give it up.

Not even close.

UCLA still means something around here, a fact that all the Steve Lavin bashing can’t change, a fact that was never more clear than Thursday in front of a screaming record crowd of 16,409.

That crowd was mostly for USC. Yet it was USC that was rattled.

The hot coach in town is Henry Bibby. Yet it was Lavin, for a second consecutive game, behaving as clearly the best coach in the room.

The best athletes and most polished talents play for USC.

Yet it was UCLA that brought what, after seeing this again and again in the Lavin years, can only be called the UCLA heart.

“We have been through blowouts, and big wins, and big losses, and everything,” Young said afterward, shrugging. “Through it all, we stay composed. We stay like a buzz saw.”

The whirring began Thursday with 12:54 remaining in the game after Trojan David Bluthenthal’s only three-pointer in seven tries closed the gap to 52-50.

The crowd stood and screamed and jostled and did everything but jump on the Bruins’ backs.

Then freshman T.J. Cummings calmly swatted them off with a spinning bank shot between Sam Clancy and Brandon Granville.

“I’m the kind of guy, I want the ball, even when I know I’m not going to get it,” Cummings said with a grin.

The whir continued moments later when Jeff Trepagnier’s layup tied the score at 54-all.

The UCLA defense calmly held, then, with 9:37 left, Earl Watson hit a running bank shot to give the Bruins a lead they never lost.

“Earl Watson is like Cal Ripken,” Young said.

Four years ago that comparison would have seemed absurd. Now, in a strange way, it sort of fits.

It seems Watson always shows up. It seems he always makes the big play. It seems he never notices either attribute.

Was this the biggest win of your season, Earl?

“Well, um, no, we just beat Stanford last weekend,” he said.

Are you mad at USC for talking trash before the game?

“Maybe that was only one person,” he said. “And besides, it’s over with. We have to move on. We have another game.”

Two times zones away, in less than 48 hours, to be exact.

It was the perfect metaphor for the UCLA program that the Bruins hurriedly dressed after the victory and hustled to catch a red-eye flight to Chicago for a Saturday afternoon game against DePaul.

This team has never been allowed to celebrate too long, or despair too long, because something strange and unusual has always been only 20 minutes away.

And to think, if there was ever a night for USC, this was it.

Their coach, Bibby, was 1-9 against UCLA and mad about it. Their players were 0-1 against UCLA this year and talking trash about it.

But it turns out, that was the problem.

“I think we had the edge because of everything that was said in the paper,” Watson said. “I think they were too emotional, too jacked up.

“All that emotion lasts for about five minutes . . . and then what are you left with?”

You are left with Dan Gadzuric’s dunk after an offensive rebound, followed by Trepagnier’s charge of Gadzuric at the other end of the court.

You are left with a Young layup, followed by Granville’s dribble off his foot.

Time and again down the stretch Thursday, UCLA would make the composed play, and USC the crazy one.

The Trojans’ chances fittingly, perhaps, ended with two missed three-point attempts in the final minute by Gennaro Busterna.

Gennaro Busterna?

The junior guard played a total of one minute, yet was asked to take two shots to help save the Trojans.

UCLA showed no such impulsiveness.

“We are a reflection of the coaching staff, especially Coach Lavin,” Watson said. “None of this stuff bothers us.”

He says this a lot about Lavin.

Perhaps it is time we start believing him.

The tone of the game was set before the introductions.

Brian Scalabrine stuck his head down and ran through the UCLA layup line while running onto the court.

Matt Barnes just shoved him away and smiled.

As USC fans around the court jeered the Bruins, Barnes kept smiling.

The new-money Trojans did their best to impress with hot toys and expensive gadgets and hip emotion.

The old-money Bruins just shook their heads.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.