Three-Peat Bid Fails for Bruins

A stroke of scheduling genius, that’s how UCLA insiders billed this game.

Simulate NCAA tournament conditions by traveling across the country. Face a mid-level team that struggles against ranked opponents in a cavernous arena to mute the home-court advantage. Serve it up on national television.

Sometimes the best-laid plans ...

“None of this was what we expected,” Bruin forward T.J. Cummings said.

A 58-57 loss to Villanova on Saturday, with UCLA blowing a four-point lead in the last 1:15 and Billy Knight missing the same outcome-determining three-point shot he made against USC three days earlier, was a fitting end to a dizzying, distracting weekend.

The venue changed from First Union Center to Villanova’s claustrophobic 6,500-capacity campus arena because of the NBA All-Star game and accompanying festivities, which transformed the city into the biggest celebration east of Mardi Gras.

The Bruin hotel lobby crawled with men dressed to impress and women wearing considerably less. Players were boldly approached and Coach Steve Lavin was handed an invitation to a party called “The Big Sexy,” boasting a long list of special guests, including Elton Brand, Kevin Garnett and “Ced the Entertainer.”

Lavin didn’t go, instead making sure his own Ced--freshman point guard Cedric Bozeman--and the rest of the team was safely tucked in bed.

“It was weird, there were a lot of people in the hotel we don’t usually see,” Cummings said. “But [the coaches] kept us in our rooms. They wouldn’t let us out.”

There probably was little to worry about given the low-key nature and advanced age of most of the Bruins. In fact, the lineup of Knight, Dan Gadzuric, Matt Barnes, Rico Hines and Jason Kapono employed by UCLA much of the game was older than the NBA lineup competing in the rookie game Saturday night.

But superior experience did not help No. 15 UCLA (16-7) against the Wildcats (13-8), a young team with a new coach that had not defeated a ranked opponent.

The slow-paced, rough-and-tumble game was led by Villanova most of the way, but a six-point possession put UCLA ahead, 48-47, with seven minutes left.

Knight made a free throw to complete a three-point play and Barnes was fouled flagrantly by Ricky Wright during the foul shot. He made one of two free throws, UCLA retained possession and Barnes was fouled while shooting, this time making both.

Knight made a steal and layup with four minutes to play to extend the margin to 54-50, but on Villanova’s next possession Bozeman barely missed stripping the ball from Wright, who passed to Gary Buchanan for a three-point basket.

Bozeman’s surgically repaired right knee bumped Wright on the play and the Bruin guard crumpled to the floor seconds later. Although he was helped to the bench and did not return, trainer Mark Schoen said afterward that Bozeman is fine.

The same couldn’t be said for the rest of the Bruins.

Buchanan hit the last of his six three-pointers with 1:15 left to slice the UCLA lead to 57-56. Kapono, the Bruins’ leading scorer, was on the bench because Lavin did not want him on defense, and his absence was felt on UCLA’s next possession. The Bruins sputtered for 32 seconds before a Wildcat knocked the ball out of bounds.

Kapono was inserted, and his inbound pass was stripped from Barnes. Brooks Sales was fouled by Gadzuric on a drive in the lane and made the free throws to put Villanova ahead with 21.2 seconds left.

UCLA got the ball to Knight, whose three-point effort with five seconds to play bounced off the rim. He ended up with the loose ball and hurried an off-balance miss before time expired.

Knight and Barnes each scored 17 points. Buchanan was hotter, scoring 20 on open perimeter jump shots against the Bruin zone defense.

“I couldn’t believe they came out in a zone,” Buchanan said. “Everybody plays man against us.”

Villanova employed an aggressive man-to-man that focused on Kapono, who scored nine points on three-of-nine shooting. In last season’s 28-point victory over the Wildcats at UCLA, he equaled his career high with 28 points.

Yet this was a different game in a different city, where nothing for the Bruins went as planned.