Lavin Just Nine Wins Shy of Keeping His Job

Maybe you can explain this one to me.

UCLA not only sold out its allotment of 2,300 tickets for the Pac-10 tournament beginning today in Staples Center -- and that’s $170 a ticket for three days of basketball with the obvious expectation the Bruins will lose the tournament’s first game -- but asked for 200 more, and sold those.

The 2,500 tickets the Bruins sold are more than the tickets allotted to No. 1-ranked Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State and Stanford combined. USC said it would try to sell 1,600 tickets, but has more than 200 remaining.

I wonder if some UCLA fans are covering themselves in the event the Bruins pull another Lavin -- UCLA once again saving its best for last.

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I HOPE I’m not too late in my effort to help save Steve Lavin’s job. I plan to have buttons, bumper stickers and T-shirts available after the Bruins upset the No. 1 team in the nation today and move within two wins of advancing to the NCAA tournament and six more to the national title.

Now I’m kind of counting on the Bruins getting a distracted Arizona team today, a group of overconfident kids who have already blistered UCLA by 35.5 points a game this season. Arizona is set to get a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament, so it has very little motivation beyond avoiding injuries, and Coach Lute Olson has made it clear for two years now he’s opposed to the Pac-10 tournament.

Olson also has his own impending marriage on April 12 to distract him, and I can only imagine the money his bride is spending now in preparation for that great day. If I were him I’d want to get home as soon as possible and check up on things.

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A LOT has been made about how bad a season it has been for the Bruins, but I’m told the Bruins’ R.I.P. number -- I’m sorry, RPI number, is 156, which means there are 171 teams worse off than UCLA.

As badly as things supposedly have gone for UCLA this season, Lavin’s seven-year mark as head coach is 144-77, while across town Henry Bibby has been in charge of USC’s basketball program for the same amount of time and has a record of 114-94. And everyone has Lavin fired.

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AT UCLA’S basketball banquet Monday, Ray Young told Lavin the Bruins had the basketball world right where they wanted it. Lavin then told the banquet crowd he just wished Young & Co. had let him, the school’s athletic director and chancellor in on the plan so they didn’t have to suffer so much. Lavin took a potentially uncomfortable situation, which had UCLA’s athletic director and chancellor in attendance -- along with their wives -- and made it an evening all could enjoy.

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THERE HAS been a lot written about Lavin -- every media member in town wanting the chance, I guess, to pound Lavin until he screams, “uncle.” You can imagine how frustrated the media must be, because that’s just not going to happen.

At Wednesday’s pre-tournament news conference, Lavin praised his players for never pointing fingers at each other or the coach, while still believing they have what it takes to shock the world. (That would be so much fun to see.)

He refuses to fire back at critics, although twice there have been media pushes -- one coming from so-called sources and the other because he named potential successors -- to convince the public Lavin has quit on the Bruins. But under Lavin’s direction, UCLA has responded by playing its best basketball in the last five of six games -- winning four of those contests. The Bruins have won three of their last four, which isn’t too bad for a team that has supposedly quit.

No matter what happens today -- and I do believe in miracles -- Lavin has handled professional distress with class while providing the players he coaches an example of how to conduct themselves under the most trying circumstances.

I’ll be taking bumper-sticker suggestions after today’s game.

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ON FOX, broadcaster Ralph Lawler had the Rockets suffering a “devastating loss to the Clippers” before Houston rallied to win in overtime. A guy who has broadcast hundreds and hundreds of Clipper games should know better.

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THE UNINTERESTED Lakers have allowed an average of 113.5 points the last two games. It makes you wonder if they have realized they can’t finish fourth or fifth, which they need to do to avoid playing the Spurs, Kings and Mavericks. That leaves them the option of falling to eighth, which would give them Portland, Minnesota and Dallas.

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THE SAME day Michael Zampelli was quoted on the front of The Times supporting the Kings’ move to reveal financial information and eventually release it on Zampelli’s Web site, letsgokings.com, Zampelli won the team’s “Seventh Man Contest.” An interesting coincidence.

Zampelli reported on his Web site that his entry was “picked from over 3,000 others.” A King spokesman, however, said the contest drew 230 entries and the team’s marketing and sales departments selected Zampelli’s 250-word essay as the winner, which puts him in the running to win a trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

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MARTHA BURK, the chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, is expected to file a lawsuit demanding the women’s protest be allowed to move closer to the Augusta front gate. I believe she’s asking for red-tees’ consideration.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Ed Shoop:

“I was interested to see in (your horse column) you are taking a different ‘TACT.’ I think you meant ‘tack,’ meaning you are intending to head off in a different direction.”

Pretty ticky-tact, if you ask me.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.