A Trip Into Zany Zone

UCLA is off to Northern California, land of creative thinkers, zany individualists and wacky student sections. Home-court advantage is rarely this much fun.

As for visitors, putting the ball through the basket is difficult enough without the distractions of odd-ball bands and crazed students using unrivaled props to apply the needle.

Bruin junior Jason Kapono knows. Two years ago at Stanford, students wore headbands--Kapono’s signature style point--that read “dork.”

Bruin Coach Steve Lavin knows too. UCLA made this trip last year shortly after Athletic Director Pete Dalis openly courted Rick Pitino, and students at Cal and Stanford had a field day, wearing Pitino masks and holding up signs reading, “I got next.”

Lavin finds it all hilarious.

“The students at both Cal and Stanford use their ingenuity to come up with creative ways to make warm-ups entertaining and to have fun during the game,” he said. “Cal has an old-school gymnasium feel, even though they remodeled it and made it bigger.”

When senior Billy Knight recalls wild nights at Cal, he isn’t laughing. The host Bears smothered the Bruins, 92-63, last season.

“It’s even worse than Oregon; the fans are louder and there are more people,” he said. “The band marches around the court, I remember that vividly. They yell at you. You try to ignore it, but after a while you can’t.”

Of course, Cal Coach Ben Braun loves Haas Pavilion, where his team is 15-1 this season.

“Haas is a great place, a great college atmosphere,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of tradition there. We’ve doubled our capacity [since renovating the arena] and been pretty close to sellouts every night.”

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Is the answer to finding that elusive consistency simply playing hard all the time?

The Bruins believe so.

“When we lose, I think it’s just a lack of effort, we just don’t play hard,” Knight said. “It’s all in our head, we just have to want it more. Seems we are satisfied with our record. We usually have one or two guys play hard and nobody else.

“Sometimes I don’t realize I’m not going as hard as I can until I watch [game film]. Then I see things I could have done if I showed more energy.”

It is difficult to fathom a team with so many experienced players struggling with motivation this late in the season.

“As a coach, you can only break so many chalkboards,” Lavin said. “It gets old. At some point it has to be something that is there, inside.”

The coach understands he is accountable for his players’ motivational ebb and flow.

“I always feel responsible, period,” he said. “When our team fails to reach its potential, that falls on my shoulders.”

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Thanks to a change of heart by Fox, tonight’s game at Cal will be televised. The Pacific 10 Conference game on Fox Sports Net is USC at Stanford, and for the first time this season Fox had said it would not grant UCLA a waiver to show the game on another channel.

However, Fox relented Wednesday, and the game will be on Fox Sports Net 2.

As of now, UCLA’s home game against Oregon State on Feb. 28 will not be televised because USC’s home game against Oregon is the Pac-10 game and Fox does not want to split the market.

TONIGHT

at California, 7

Fox Sports Net 2

Site--Haas Pavilion, Berkeley.

Radio--KXTA (1150, 850).

Records--No. 25 UCLA 17-8, 9-5; Cal 18-6, 9-5.

Update--The loser of this game between teams tied for fifth in the Pacific 10 Conference has no chance to win the regular-season title. The winner holds slim hopes. UCLA beat Cal, 64-57, a month ago behind a leak-proof zone defense that forced the Bears to launch 25 three-point shots. They made five. Keeping the ball from 6-foot-11 post players Solomon Hughes and Jamal Sampson again will be key. Bear 6-10 freshman forward Amit Tamir, who scored 39 points in an upset of Oregon, was held scoreless by the Bruins.