Kapono and Bruins Had No Shot

Just when that master magician Steve Lavin went to pull another rabbit out of his hat, his most-trusted assistant, Jason Kapono, pulled a disappearing act.

And with the UCLA junior forward’s annual flirtation with the NBA draft drawing near, who knows if Kapono will throw his headband into the ring ... again.

In the Bruins’ 82-73 season-ending loss to Missouri in a West Regional semifinal, Kapono, the Bruins’ leading scorer and top sharpshooter, finished with seven points on three-of-eight shooting from the field, missing his only shot from beyond the three-point arc.

Not exactly the way to end a season, let alone a college career.

“Not at all,” said Kapono, who entered the game averaging a team-high 16.3 points while shooting 45.5% from three-point territory. “But hey, only one team out there is going to win their last game. Everyone else is going to lose so we’re one of those 64 teams out of the 65-team field that’s going to go home with a loss.

“Only one team is going to go home with that high of going home with a title, the NCAA championship.”

So, is it too soon to even think about where you’ll be next year?

“Definitely so. Yep,” said Kapono, who also considered attending Missouri, Utah and Nevada Las Vegas coming out of Artesia High in 1999.

Missouri reserve Josh Kroenke, a childhood friend, said the Tigers’ goal was to neutralize the streaky-shooting Kapono.

“I’ve known Jason since 1995 and I’ve seen him struggle a lot but that was also our defense out there tonight,” Kroenke said. “That was our mind-set--to take away his looks. We knew if we took away his looks, he was going to have a hard time getting into the flow of the game. He still got some shots in, but that was one of our main keys tonight, trying to take Jason out of the game.

“We wanted to make somebody else beat us.”

Nobody else did.

“Missouri did an effective job of cutting down our catch-and-shoots from the three-point line,” Lavin, the UCLA coach, said.

“And then there were just some looks that we just missed ... looks that just didn’t go in and that happens in basketball games. It was a combination. Give Missouri credit for playing really aggressive solid defense. And then we struggled to find any kind of offensive rhythm.”

Kapono, UCLA’s all-time leading three-point shooter with 272, also gave credit to the Tigers’ game plan.

“They were just tagging me,” he said.