Still Pacific Stanford Time

Preparing to step on the Pauley Pavilion floor for the final time as a UCLA basketball player Saturday, amid a roar as big as that lump in his throat, Earl Watson said something only a mother could hear.

“Aw, man,” he said. “I really hate to leave this school.”

He then did something only a mother could see.

He cried.

“I haven’t seen him cry since he left home four years ago,” said Estella Watson, who walked with her son to midcourt. “You can tell, this place is really in his heart.”

And on his elbows, and his knees, and his face.

For 38 minutes--resting only to bandage a gashed chin and change a bloody shirt--Watson ended four furious seasons with an elegant goodbye.

The Bruins lost to top-ranked Stanford, 85-79, but not before Watson made one last leap into one last cameraman.

Not before he made one more grimacing, fall-away three-point shot with three seconds left on the shot clock.

Not before he connected with one more wide-eyed teammate with a half-court pass.

And certainly not before he made three more shirt-scratching steals, making him the university’s all-time leader in that category.

Stole our hearts too, the runt.

The ovation that accompanied his entrance turned Pauley into a train station.

The number of people still hanging around more than an hour afterward, many of whom just wanted to say thanks, turned it into a bus station.

“It was very touching,” Watson said.

For once, this college extracurricular activity seemed to be about more than an ending. For once, it was about an education.

Watson played in his first home game here four years ago as as a shy, frightened kid from Kansas City, Kan., who rarely spoke, never smiled, and didn’t want anyone to notice.

He played his final minutes Saturday with a strange No. 13 jersey and a huge bandage flapping from his chin.

Yet everyone knew it was him. Few who watched him grow up will ever forget it was him.

There was some doubt that the homesick kid would ever survive his first winter here.

When this season ends, he will become the first player in UCLA history to start every game of a four-year career.

“I’m a very different person from when I came here,” Watson said. “In every aspect of life. In every aspect of basketball.”

How fitting that his final home game came with a team whose season has mirrored his tenure.

Both began with edginess and uncertainty. Both were in danger of collapse. But both have matured--sometimes painfully, sometimes gloriously.

“This is the team that will stick in my mind forever,” Watson said. “This team is my most precious team.”

With a little luck and a few more passes to Jason Kapono, this team could soon be viewed that way by the entire Westwood nation.

The loss to Stanford didn’t feel like the usual UCLA loss to a higher-ranked school in the Lavin era.

The Bruins weren’t outcoached, they were outplayed.

The Bruins didn’t beat themselves, they were flat-out beaten.

The Bruins were outrebounded by 13, had virtually no help from Dan Gadzuric because of foul trouble, could find only seven shots for Kapono . . . and still came within two possessions of the top team in the nation.

What happened Saturday did little to change the notion that, contrary to all common sense, this can be a special team.

With Watson returning to the NCAA tournament, where he experienced his biggest growth spurt last season, the Bruins can do some special things.

He got a head start on those tournament heroics Saturday by making half of his shots, all of his team’s three-pointers, and collecting a combined eight assists and steals with only one turnover.

“This loss actually takes a lot of pressure off us,” he said of the ending of the Bruins’ eight-game winning streak. “It can renew us and refresh us.”

From anybody else, that would sound like so much Bruin bull.

From Watson, who is prouder of his expected spring diploma than that steals record, it makes sense.

When a team that should not be good enough to win 16 of its last 18 games finally loses, it is reminded of its faults. It is this reminder around which next week’s game plan will be formed.

“A loss will put us back on the same page,” Watson said. “We need to be back on the same page.”

That would be the page that says, if all the Bruins don’t contribute, none of them contribute.

“You could see the signs,” Watson said. “Some guys out there trying to play on their own.”

The Bruins lost despite Watson’s 19-point effort and Matt Barnes’ 32-point brilliance. They lost because Kapono needs to be more involved in the offense, and Billy Knight needs more than 21 minutes, and Ray Young needs to do more than go 0 for 4 with no rebounds, assists, blocks or steals.

“We didn’t play as a team,” Watson said. “We’ll get that cleared up.”

Again, you believe him, because you want to believe in the power of a university to turn a child into a leader.

There have been times here when the name of Earl Watson has been booed and jeered. On Saturday it was sung, again and again, like an alma mater, only real.

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