Workmanlike Bruins Peak at Right Time

The team’s tournament ready, even if the town isn’t.

Maybe it’s not fair to expect a full-fledged case of March Madness when the town’s residents are still recovering from football fever. But the obsession over USC’s run to the Rose Bowl has not extended to UCLA’s return to the top of Pacific 10 basketball standings.

In a seven-day stretch, the Bruins won the conference regular-season championship and reached the final of the conference tournament.

Los Angeles would rather talk about who showed up at the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party or what’s going to happen on the new season (finally!) of “The Sopranos.”

Not too many people are listening to UCLA Coach Ben Howland when he says: “This is truly a team. You look at how unselfish they are, it’s just exciting to see.”

There was half a Staples Center’s worth of UCLA fans in the house for the start of the semifinal against Arizona. To be fair, it’s not easy to get downtown by 6 p.m. on a Friday, and later on UCLA fans occupied about three fourths of the seats.

The buzz isn’t there. You don’t see the blue-and-gold all over town or celebrities sitting courtside.

The Bruins couldn’t even sell out a Senior Day celebration complete with a reunion of the 1968 team a couple of weeks ago. And there were 4,000 empty seats in Pauley Pavilion the game before that.

Sure, they’re happy in Westwood. The Bruin faithful love resuming what they feel is their rightful place in the standings.

“It’s a lot of happy faces around campus,” Cedric Bozeman said. “People are actually coming up to you saying, ‘Good job. Go all the way.’ It’s a good feeling.”

But the Bruins haven’t become a citywide phenomenon.

We must be too jaded out here. Or maybe, on the college level, it has become a football town.

About 25 years ago, when both schools’ signature sports were going strong, it wasn’t unusual to hear of people practicing collegiate bigamy, rooting for USC in football and UCLA in basketball.

It’s possible that things haven’t changed -- that only a championship gets people excited in L.A.

In 2002, USC drew 52,000 for a regular conference game. Last season 90,000 showed up at the Coliseum for a game against Fresno State.

Still, USC didn’t only win games the last three years. The Trojans won with a dazzling offense and the star power of Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush in the backfield and Snoop Dogg on the sidelines.

The thing about these basketball Bruins is they’re better because they don’t have a superstar. The parts interchange. Friday night, Jordan Farmar sat out 12 minutes of the first half. No problem. The Bruins took a 10-point lead while he was on the bench, thanks to Darren Collison.

They’ve developed into exactly what Howland wanted them to be, a hard-nosed squad that breaks opponents’ will.

They don’t like playing defense. “I think this team loves playing defense,” Collison said. “More so, we’re competitive. In practice we compete against each other, and in the games it shows.”

Bozeman has gone from a symbol of what the Bruins were -- highly touted talent that didn’t produce -- to what they’ve become: tough guys that keep on fighting.

Bozeman finished Thursday’s game in sweats and a boot on the left ankle he sprained earlier in the game against Oregon State. He started Friday’s game in uniform and scored UCLA’s first points, then forced a turnover on Arizona’s first possession.

“I’m so proud of him,” Howland said. “He really came out and gave us a huge boost.”

“Our mental toughness has definitely turned around,” Bozeman said.

“If we’re down, we continue to fight back. If we’re up, we keep it up. I think Coach Howland’s doing a great job keeping us mentally tough.”

The NCAA tournament requires versatility, and the Bruins have that as well.

When Arizona packed in the zone, UCLA patiently outlasted it. When the Wildcats tried to chase the Bruins, UCLA dissected them.

And the Bruins adjusted to the variation of officiating, which saw them shoot 10 free throws in the first half Thursday and only five in the first half Friday. Inconsistent officiating styles is an underplayed element of the NCAA tournament.

The Bruins handled Arizona with even greater ease than the 71-59 score indicated. It gave UCLA a three-game sweep of Arizona this season. It doesn’t matter who the Wildcats didn’t have or how much they’ve slipped; it’s never easy for a college team to beat the same opponent three times in a season.

Two tournament games, a total differential of 44 points. The Bruins are peaking.

“We’re playing really well,” Howland said. “That’s what you want to be doing. You want to be playing your best basketball at the end of the season.

“Not only are we playing, but we’re getting better. We’re improving.”

And maybe two weeks from now Los Angeles will be buzzing about the Bruins in the Sweet 16 -- and not the start of spring football practice at USC.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.