Next UCLA Foe Has Own Problems

The storied tradition, the hallowed arena, the three pride-grinding, early-season losses.

Sorry, Kansas, you’ll get no sympathy in Los Angeles.

Losing to North Carolina, Florida and Oregon hardly rates.

Not next to UCLA’s losses to San Diego, Duke and Northern Arizona.

By all appearances, you can practically pencil in the next Bruin loss Saturday, when UCLA travels to play Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Rock-Chalk-Jayhawk crowd is hungry for a victory over a big-name -- if not big-game -- team.

Kansas has plummeted from No. 2 to No. 19 in Associated Press polls since the season began.

“They’re going to pretty much get upset with anything around here other than a national championship. You can’t pay attention to it,” forward Nick Collison said. “I don’t think anyone on our team panicked like the fans and the media did.

“For a while, the media made a big deal, wondering what was going on. People were pretty concerned. We lost to some good teams, and then we had a good win at Tulsa. Still, 5-3 -- around here, that’s unheard of.”

Almost as unheard of as UCLA’s 2-3 record.

UCLA’s only hope Saturday would seem to be some variation of the formula in last season’s 87-77 upset of then-No. 1 Kansas at Pauley Pavilion. UCLA’s guards proved too big for Kansas to shoot over, the Bruins held the Jayhawk running game in check, and Matt Barnes played like a pro. (Barnes, however, is not available this season.)

“It really doesn’t matter, I guess, what they’ve done and what we’ve done when they come in here Saturday,” Collison said. “They’re capable of playing very well. They’re very talented. And we’re not necessarily on top of the world at 5-3.”

At UCLA, Steve Lavin’s spin -- early-season lumps breed Sweet 16 runs -- started before the season began, but things are spinning out of control now.

At Kansas, the story line has been the opposite through the years.

The Jayhawks tended to run through November and December with one, maybe two losses, then endure a hail of criticism when they stumbled in a second- or third-round NCAA tournament loss.

The pattern changed last season, when Kansas lost only to Ball State and UCLA during the regular season, then lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 tournament before sweeping to the Final Four, where the Jayhawks lost to Maryland in the semifinals -- still two steps shy of the goal.

This season, with Drew Gooden thriving in Memphis and Jeff Boschee gone too, Kansas, with its shallow bench, struggled early.

Now the play of such reserves as guard Michael Lee is helping the Jayhawks come along.

“I think this team had an identity crisis,” guard Keith Langford said. “We still thought we were the team last year with Drew Gooden and Jeff Boschee that went to the Final Four. It really hit us that this is a new year. Teams are not going to lay down because Kansas is on our jerseys.

“Yes, the media has been very critical this year with three losses this early. We didn’t lose our third game last year until March.

“I think if we fall into what the media is saying, we’ll crumble. But they have no control over what we do. We win five, six, seven games in a row, the media will jump back on our bandwagon.”

UCLA can only wish to manage the same.

“We need a win,” Langford said. “Whether it’s UCLA or not, this is a must-win for both basketball teams.”

Agony of the Feet

Stanford’s season took a hit this week when point guard Chris Hernandez broke his left foot again, only two games after returning from the earlier injury.

Combined with losses to Montana and Richmond in its own Stanford Invitational -- the first time Stanford has finished last -- the news is all bad for a team that had started surprisingly well, earning a top-25 ranking with victories over Xavier and Florida.

Hernandez, a sophomore, becomes a redshirt candidate, forcing Julius Barnes, a more natural shooting guard, to play the point.

Hernandez, with a screw still in his foot after healing from the earlier break, called the injury “a freak thing.”

“He’ll be out indefinitely,” Coach Mike Montgomery said. “It’s the same bone, but not the same break. The outside of the bone, where it was originally, is healed. It kind of snuck around from the inside of the bone around to the other side, around the screw, something our doctors have never seen before, especially with the screw in that bone.”

The news is better at Arizona regarding the ankle sprain that kept Luke Walton out of the Texas game. He is expected to return for the Fiesta Bowl Classic on Dec. 28, and be ready for the Pacific 10 Conference opener Jan. 2 at Oregon.

“Long-term wise, it’s fine,” Coach Lute Olson said.

In the short term, Arizona will leave Walton at home when the Wildcats travel to Louisiana State for a game Saturday.

The reason? Walton is graduating this weekend.

“We just thought it would be better for him to be here to walk with his class, and be able to get the full attention of trainers,” Olson said.

In injury news elsewhere, progress has not been good for Chris Marcus, the 7-footer from Western Kentucky who passed up the NBA draft in hopes of improving his status after a season marred by foot problems.

Marcus has yet to play and last week had a second operation on his left ankle after a screw implanted in his foot in June caused problems. He is expected to be out at least until early January, though Coach Dennis Felton said a Jan. 4 target date was probably “ambitious.”

Cornhusker State Hoop Hysteria

Nebraska is supposed to be football territory -- or at least it was before this season -- but the big game in Lincoln on Saturday is when the Cornhuskers play host to No. 20 Creighton.

The 8-0 Bluejays have been called “this year’s Kent State” by Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey, whose team lost to Creighton.

Forward Kyle Korver and his teammates aren’t complete newcomers. They upset Florida in the first round of the NCAA tournament last season, and Korver is tearing it up again, with five games already in which he has made five or more three-pointers.

Nebraska, coming off a 13-15 season and off to a 4-3 start, is the decided underdog against the team from Omaha, about 55 miles away.

“There probably will be quite a few Creighton fans at our place. It’s going to be loud,” Nebraska forward Brian Conklin said.

“It’s always been known as a football state. Now we have Creighton ranked and we’re playing very good basketball.

“There’s a sense of pride because you run into these

guys. And we all want to show this state can play basketball as well as football.”

Around the Rim

Indianapolis, New Orleans and San Antonio are familiar Final Four sites on the list of the six cities being considered to play host to the championships from 2008-11. The reason: Domes rule. Guidelines call for a minimum of 40,000 seats and the city must have 8,500 first-class hotel rooms available for the official block. Other cities on the list: Detroit, Houston and St. Louis. The familiar rotation continues next spring, with the 2003 Final Four in New Orleans, followed by San Antonio, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Atlanta.... Craig Smith, a freshman forward who played with Evan Burns at Fairfax High before spending last season at Worcester (Mass.) Academy, is making his mark at Boston College. Smith averaged 21 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 steals in victories over Iowa State and Stony Brook.