Unhappy Ending for UCLA

On an afternoon when they were supposed to be making a case for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, the 13th-ranked UCLA Bruins only sowed seeds of doubt.

After all, if they can lose to Washington--a free-falling team that had dropped eight consecutive games--exactly how low is their rock bottom? Maybe that’s what the Bruins were discussing for 45 minutes Saturday in the visitors’ locker room after the 96-94 defeat, when Coach Steve Lavin blew through the customary 10-minute cooling-off period.

“We played pretty bad tonight,” said forward Matt Barnes, making what might be the understatement of the season. “We played pretty bad the whole road trip. We snuck by [at Washington State], then came back at the end and won. This time, we weren’t so lucky. If we want to make a run in the tournament, we can’t have this kind of stuff.”

Washington, which has beaten the Bruins in Seattle four years in a row, scored seven points in the final 34.3 seconds to clinch the victory. The hero was senior guard Michael Johnson, who swished a three-point shot from the corner to put the Huskies up by two with 1.1 seconds to play.

Thanks to some defensive confusion, it was an unguarded shot for Johnson, who led his team with 29 points and was knocking down everything in sight. On the game-winner, he casually caught an inbounds pass and stroked the shot over a lunging Jason Kapono.

There were two curious aspects to the final shot. First, why did the Bruins call a timeout with 3.6 seconds remaining and let the Huskies--who were out of timeouts--set up the play? And why didn’t they do a better job of smothering Johnson?

“I was a little surprised [the shot came so easy], just because we had been doing that play all night,” Johnson said. “I figured they might want a guy jumping out on it. . . . But they got a guy shooting a fade-away, three-point shot and that’s probably what they wanted.”

Said Kapono: “He knocked down that three right in my face, I just have to swallow that.”

Meanwhile, the Bruins have to swallow this: They had 24 turnovers--matching their season high, which came in a loss to Cal State Northridge--and played as poorly as they have all season. Not exactly the way to primp for the selection committee.

“It’s very discouraging to lose in the last game of the season because you are hoping to get momentum going into the tournament,” Lavin said. “And you want to be able to build off your last game.”

UCLA finished third in the Pacific 10 Conference behind Stanford and Arizona, and dropped to 21-8, 14-4 in conference play. It was a shocking victory for the Huskies (10-20, 4-14), who were in the midst of their longest losing slide since 1994.

“That was one of the most enjoyable games to have been a part of, and we all know the reasons,” Coach Bob Bender said. “That was a good lesson of what people are made of, to come out and play like we did and be rewarded with a win. It’s not an easy win; it was not a game that was taken lightly.”

That should come as some relief to the Bruins; Washington did not take them lightly.

Of course, UCLA has other worries. The team could be coming apart at the seams. After the Stanford loss, point guard Earl Watson said the players weren’t “on the same page.” He echoed that Saturday.

“Our problem is never on the court; our problem is more mental,” he said. “Either we play together or we don’t. It’s each person, individually, who has to choose if they want to play as a team or go out there and just get stats. That’s our biggest challenge.

“I would say at the beginning of the year we were similar to the way we are now. After losing for a while, we chose to just move on, and that’s when we started winning. We have a lot of potential and all the skills. We just have to choose what we want to do.”

Is another opening-round collapse in the offing?

“No,” Watson said, “because I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. There’s not going to be any Detroit Mercy first-round knockout. I’m going to try my hardest to pull this together, on the court, off the court. If I have to pull guys to the side, whatever it is, I’m going to do it.”