It Was So Quiet, You Could Hear a Career Drop

Now, even the grand old lady has given up.

It became official Saturday amid musty echoes and bored boos and a giant emptiness where college basketball greatness once roared.

Even Pauley Pavilion has thrown up its hands and turned its back and walked away from Steve Lavin.

His flailing UCLA basketball team hosted St. John’s at high noon Saturday, a perfect time for a rousing intersectional clash of two traditional powers.

But Pauley didn’t show.

Its mystique was swallowed up among the large blocks of vacant seats. Its aura disappeared in the silence.

“I didn’t feel nothing, to tell you the truth,” said Anthony Glover, the St. John’s forward, his words more damaging than his 22 points.

The final score was St. John’s 80, UCLA 65, but the most important numbers were elsewhere.

At tipoff, in one 126-seat student section, there were five students.

“I talked to all my friends, but nobody would come with me,” said Lucas Danna, a junior from Palo Alto, sitting by himself amid a sea of empty blue. “The team is no good, and nobody cares.”

Late in the first half, the generously calculated crowd of 8,503 offered its first and only standing ovation.

For football Coach Karl Dorrell.

“This is the most disappointing thing in the world,” red-eyed Bruin Josiah Johnson said.

With eight minutes remaining in the game, many of the fans began to leave.

With four minutes remaining, in an even more ominous statement, a couple of dozen large kids in baggy pants and sweatshirts filed out.

It was a group of football recruits.

“Keep your eyes down, fellas, and follow us to Lawry’s.”

Pauley was so feeble, a St. John’s player threw up an airball and approximately two people chanted.

Pauley was so tired, you could actually hear members of the St. John’s bench chanting, “Dee-fense, dee-fense.”

Pauley was so bored, at one point late in the game, a couple of fans in the courtside seats were standing and conversing with their backs to the action.

“I was surprised that they were so quiet,” St. John’s Coach Mike Jarvis said.

For an entire season it has been like this, the average crowds of barely 8,000 ranking second-worst in the arena’s 38-year-history.

Pauley has turned into a powder-blue Sports Arena.

The championship banners have never been more alone.

“It always feels like we’re playing on the road,” Bruin T.J. Cummings said.

Of all the last-minute nails being hammered into Steve Lavin’s UCLA coaching career, this is the largest.

What was once the most storied home in college basketball should never feel like the road.

Bob Toledo was fired after emptying the school’s rented football facility.

What do you think is going to happen to Lavin for emptying their church?

“I remember coming down here as a kid, camping outside for tickets, Ed O’Bannon came by and gave me a doughnut,” student Danna said. “Now, there’s none of that.”

Emptied, and trashed.

The Bruins, 2-5 at home, need to go 8-0 in their remaining home games to avoid equaling the most losses in Pauley history.

The Bruins, 4-7 overall, need to go 10-6 in their remaining conference schedule to avoid their first losing record in 55 years.

While the first feat seems impossible, even the second feat is improbable.

And it all started with, well, Toledo.

While Athletic Director Dan Guerrero certainly needed to make a change in the football program, his timing was most unfortunate.

When he fired Toledo, he immediately turned Lavin into a lame duck.

The date was Dec. 9.

His players haven’t played consistently hard or together for Lavin since.

This being arguably the least talented UCLA team in many years, the combination has been dreadful.

“We get what we deserve,” Lavin said Saturday.

They deserved little Saturday, what with being dominated inside by a smaller team, losing the battle of turnovers, squelching every good run with selfish shots.

The good will built by Lavin’s five Sweet 16 appearances has been disintegrated by a team that apparently doesn’t care if it wins 16 games.

His failure to consistently make players better has caught up to him in recruiting.

His failure to be as tough in winter as in spring has caught up to him with the fans.

Pauley is kind, but it’s not dumb. It knows a pretender. This UCLA team is no UCLA team, and it knows it.

Pauley walked away from its coach Saturday, and Steve Lavin is no longer strong enough to survive alone.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.