Without Direction, UCLA Isn’t Acting Like Elite Program

The sad part for anyone who cares even the smallest bit about UCLA basketball wasn’t Kansas 87, Bruins 70.

There was actually a touch of honor in that final score of Saturday’s game at Allen Fieldhouse, a reflection of continued effort despite an apparent lost cause.

No, the sad part came with 11 minutes left in the first half and the Bruins behind, 14-6, because it was already obvious that this was over.

Basketball sense would tell you that a team that trailed by only eight points with nearly 30 minutes to play, a team that wasn’t buried after starting a road game with almost five scoreless minutes -- and a total of four points in the first 8:30 -- still had a shot to win. But common sense told you better. Everything the Bruins had done to that point, in this game and in this season, told you they weren’t going to win.

Because the Bruins have no direction. And if they don’t know where they’re going, how are they going to get there?

What’s their offensive philosophy? Who’s their go-to guy? They have no idea.

“You’ve gotta establish roles and we’ve gotta have goals offensively,” Bruin senior Ray Young said. “Until we kind of figure out who has what role and what’s a good shot, what’s a bad shot, what plays work better for different people or different lineups in the game, we’ll still kind of struggle.

“We don’t really have that offensive identity, like Kansas, per se. You know whether they make or miss, they’re pushing the ball up the court, they’re running and gunning, they play inside-out. Until we establish our offensive identity, we’re still going to be floating around. It’ll be a roll of the dice.”

And it’ll usually come up snake eyes. Steve Lavin said the plan for this game was to take advantage of Kansas’ aggressive denial all over the court by making backdoor cuts. But it’s not fair to expect the Bruins to turn into Princeton overnight. They wound up doing the exact opposite: throwing risky lateral passes around the perimeter that the Jayhawks intercepted and turned into fastbreaks the other way. That’s why Kansas led, 48-25, at halftime.

The Bruins don’t have a low-post threat and they aren’t setting up their top perimeter shooter, Jason Kapono. If Kapono can’t create good shots for himself, it’s up to the guys with the clipboards to free him. But at this point it’s hard to tell who is more confused about Jason Kapono’s role in the offense -- Lavin or Kapono.

On one possession, Lavin yelled directions to Kapono. Kapono thought about setting a high screen, then didn’t, then started to set a low screen and that didn’t happen, either. Meanwhile, the option of someone setting a screen for him never materialized.

At least Dijon Thompson has an idea of what to do.

“Post up!” he yelled at T.J. Cummings, after a miscommunication and indecision by Cummings led to another UCLA turnover. “Post up!”

Later, Cummings did post up, Thompson got him the ball and Cummings scored. Now what was so hard about that ... and why did it take more than half the game for it to happen?

Thompson was a bright spot Saturday, leading the team in scoring (21), assists (five) and steals (four).

The only good thing to say about the UCLA team was that the Bruins did play hard all the way through. Playing hard will usually get you something, and in this case it was an 11-3 run in the second half that trimmed Kansas’ one-time 25-point lead down to 11 with three minutes to play. For a little while it was UCLA forcing quick shots, causing turnovers and creating transition opportunities. The Bruins even had the ball with a chance to cut the lead to single digits.

But what good would that have done? Then they would have been locked in a battle of execution, possession for possession, and you know how that would have turned out.

What made the Kansas-UCLA matchup so enticing in theory was that it involved schools with rich basketball tradition, bringing together the ancestral homes of Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Naismith and John Wooden.

The present looked pretty lopsided. Kansas Coach Roy Williams vs. Lavin isn’t even debatable, and it showed in Saturday’s game.

Another area in which Kansas holds the edge: home-court advantage. Allen Fieldhouse, with its windows up on the walls and cozy size, is my favorite venue in college basketball. It has all the great atmosphere of Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, with none of the pretentiousness.

Pauley Pavilion still is home to those 11 championship banners, but lately the crowds haven’t even been half as large as the 16,300 who packed Allen on Saturday.

There’s not much for Lavin to say to the sharks right now. They’re in feeding-frenzy mode after tasting Bob Toledo’s blood, and they’re jumping out of the water with excitement over Dan Guerrero’s selection of Karl Dorrell.

Spin won’t win.

“We should be discouraged and disappointed,” Lavin said. “We’ve dug ourselves a hole here, being 2-4.

“There’s still a lot of basketball ahead of us. It’s not as deep a hole as the Lakers are in or even the Angels got off to start their season. But we do have some deficiencies we have to remedy.”

With an ax-wielding athletic director around, Lavin would be wise to shore them up himself. UCLA came up way short in this battle of basketball bluebloods -- and it’s a lot easier to get a new coach than a new building.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.