UCLA Adopts Its Own Jordan Rules

It was a party, for Pistol Pete’s sake, a party, a time for everyone to gather inside and celebrate the next great point guard’s signing with UCLA.

Where was Jordan Farmar?

Outside at the backyard hoop, in a one-armed shooting contest with his high school coach.

Derrick Taylor took the lead. Farmar took the bait.

“I’m going to beat you if we have to stay here all night,” said Farmar.

And so they nearly did, shooting again and again until frustrated family members finally stalked out and ordered them back inside.

Thus a basketball that could have been used as a party centerpiece ended up locked in a closet.

“Hey,” protested Farmar a year later, “if he hadn’t made the first one, none of that would have happened.”

He is the locked knee in the new Bruin stance. He is the insistent humming in the new Bruin buzz.

Have you watched him? He plays like nobody is watching him, running with innocent abandon, wild pass followed by wow shot followed by whoa defense, the conscience of all these Bruin comebacks.

Nine turnovers one night, three turnovers in the next three games combined. Twenty-two percent shooting one night, 57% the next.

Trailing by double digits one minute, leaping into a set of sweaty arms the next.

“To me, it’s the YMCA, it’s Taft High, it’s my backyard,” Farmar said. “No cameras, no people, everything zoned out, nothing there but the game.”

Have you listened to him? He talks as if nobody is listening to him, unafraid to scold teammates, bark at opponents, challenge himself.

“I want to be the best point guard in the country,” he said. “The best point guard in school history? Sure, I want that too.”

If he sounds a bit like a traveling preacher, well, amen. With Jordan Farmar sprinting through the tent, rebuilding has become revival, the Bruins entering the second half of the season with a real chance to make the NCAA tournament.

The number of people who saw this coming being, like, one?

Yeah, him.

“I didn’t come here to be average,” Farmar said. “I want us to win the Pac-10 every year. I want us to contend for the national championship every year. And I’m talking about this year.”

And to think, he almost didn’t come here at all.

He ranks third in the Pacific 10 Conference in minutes played -- the only freshman in the top 10 -- yet a couple of years ago the Steve Lavin regime stopped recruiting him.

He ranks third in the conference in assists -- one of only two freshmen in the top 10 -- yet he was originally headed for Florida or Gonzaga.

Then Lavin was fired, Ben Howland was hired, and the squarely built boss made a nimble leap from introductory news conference to Farmar’s living room.

“Jordan’s final schools were coming to see him beginning on a Tuesday,” recalled Taylor, his Taft High coach. “Ben called and said, ‘Please, can you put me down for Monday?’ ”

Howland talked his way into the house, then talked Farmar into making an official visit to campus, all but snapping at the kid who had decided to become a Gator.

Said Farmar: “Lavin didn’t really want me and I didn’t really want to go to UCLA; it was mutual.”

Said Howland: “I liked his toughness, his ability to lead, his mentality. This was the kind of kid we needed to have.”

This was, after all, a kid who helped a Valley team win a City championship for the first time in four decades. This was a kid who, with his team trailing by 10 in the final minutes, once scored 11 consecutive points in a playoff game.

Taft eventually lost that game, but Farmar’s career had already been the stuff of local legend, and Howland knew just now to reach him.

“He told me he was going to make UCLA a winner again whether I signed or not,” said Farmar with a grin. “I kind of liked that.”

What clinched the deal was a late-night dinner with father Damon, a former pro baseball player, and godfather Eric Davis. Yeah, that Eric Davis.

The evening ended with a post-midnight eight clap, even the cool Farmar was sold, and now Davis can be found sitting right above the student section.

“They were saying that I had no idea what UCLA basketball is, and what it could be,” Farmar said. “I can see it now.”

Playing to increasingly large crowds, the Bruins have pulled big upsets at home (Washington) and on the road (Arizona State) while remaining unbeaten in eight games at home.

Although unranked, their four losses are to opponents with a combined record of 49-12, so they are rated 13th in the national RPI index, which contributes to the seeding of teams in the NCAA tournament.

If Dijon Thompson is their All-American, Farmar is their All Can’t-Miss-Him, creating mismatches with his speed and dropping jaws with his creativity.

“I don’t want to be like anybody,” he said. “I just want to be like myself.”

That person, who turned 18 only a couple of months ago, walked into the UCLA coach’s office Tuesday with a cockeyed black hat with a regrettable San Francisco Giant logo.

“This was my godfather’s last team,” he said. “This is family.”

He also wore a silver chain imprinted with a photo of him being kissed on the cheek ... not by a coed, but by his little sister Shoshana.

“That’s my girl,” he said with a grin.

Jordan Farmar is clearly unafraid to be himself, making him a good fit for a UCLA program that once again is daring to be itself.

Even, as the kid might say, if it takes all night.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.