Bruins get dance ticket punched out by Gators

ATLANTA -- SO who is batting leadoff for the Angels on Monday night?

Now listen, I’m not saying I have a problem with this, but the UCLA Dance Team proved to be more offensive than the school’s basketball team when it came time to put on a show here Saturday night.

The crowd just loved UCLA, the five girls that is, who came out in white T-shirts, provocatively wiggling all over the place, and given what the NCAA considers an infraction, it’s shocking the Bruins weren’t immediately given the death penalty or an invite to do some pole dancing later at one of the joints around here.

The basketball players, meanwhile, were goners from almost the start, overmatched once again by a superior team from Florida, which has as much swagger as it does talent. Florida goes on to play Ohio State for another championship, the basketball title game probably ending just like the football one a few months back.

As for the Bruins, they go home knowing that Plaschke was behind them all the way, while Coach Ben Howland deserves at least a nice parting gift from CBS for keeping an audience and the Bruins as close as they were at the end.

But this was a colossal mismatch, three against five, no way to be successful in the Final Four.

This is where the big boys play, and UCLA doesn’t have any of those. Florida lined up with a pair of beasts inside, Joakim Noah and Al Horford, who combined for 28 rebounds, while substitute James Keefe led the Bruins with six.

Thanks for showing up, guys, but the team that scores the most points wins the game. UCLA, meanwhile, plays the game as if its only intent is to keep the other team from scoring.

“I thought we were going to win,” Howland said, and that’ll teach him to read Plaschke. “But they’re really good, and we were struggling to score.”

The Bruins always seem to struggle to score, although Howland is always quick to point out that his team averaged 71 points a game this season. So maybe it’s the ugly way they get there, down by 16 points against Florida with seven minutes to play, and still running the 35-second clock down while working the ball around the perimeter.

“If you’re going to Final Fours on a consistent basis and winning conference championships the fans will embrace the coach at UCLA regardless of what particular style he has,” said ESPN’s Steve Lavin, the former Bruins coach who is somewhat of an expert on what it’s like not to be embraced.

“Hey, as it is, it’s hard to argue with the results. UCLA has been as successful a program in the country the past two years as anyone except Florida.”

I told Lavin I’d be happy to pass on some of his old offensive plays to Howland, and he started laughing -- just like you are now.

“I had UCLA beating Florida tonight,” Lavin said, and there is no limit to Plaschke’s readership.

THE BRUINS sat in front of their lockers after the game, as the NCAA dictates, to make themselves available for the media.

That left Howland alone in a side room, and so we talked about how close he has come the last two years to hanging a 12th championship banner at UCLA.

“I’m just disappointed, two years in a row to get here and not bring back a championship for UCLA,” Howland said. “I thought the week of preparation, and the way we would play, we would do it. But there is so little margin of error with a team like Florida, and we lost Arron [Afflalo] for a lot of time and you need your horse in there.”

Then he excused himself for a moment to shake hands with former Bruin Jason Kapono.

“Sorry, Jason, we didn’t get it done for you,” Howland said, while Kapono thanked him for two years of Final Four fun.

“You know, I really loved this group of kids,” Howland said, and it’s understandable the way they bought into his suffocating brand of defense. “No matter what happened, it was a fantastic year. You know, only one team is going to leave here happy, and unfortunately, it’s just not going to be us.”

THE WAY they were ripping off fans here in the Georgia Dome, you would think the Parking Lot Attendant was working as an advisor to the NCAA. They dropped a basketball court in the middle of a football stadium, the fans on one side of the court in the Georgia Dome, who were paying more than $150 each for a seat, sitting so far back from the floor, they were probably closer to Alabama than the action taking place here.

When Ohio State’s Greg Oden got tagged with a second foul 1:42 into the game, it ruined the first half for the TV audience, but as for the fans sitting so far away, it was just another ant being removed from the court.

BESIDES ODEN, Georgetown’s Jeff Green looked like the other cinch to make an immediate NBA impression. He played more like Lamar Odom -- shooting only five times -- than Kobe Bryant, which is to say he played unselfish basketball.

HOUSTON OPTED to foul Kwame Brown late in Friday’s game, because as Coach Jeff Van Gundy was quoted later of saying in the Houston Chronicle, “He’s one of the worst free-throw shooters of all time, especially in the fourth quarter. The guy makes 31% or 32% in the fourth quarter.”

Most coaches would worry about saying something so inflammatory about the opposition, but apparently Van Gundy has no concerns about motivating Brown to play better and come back and hurt them.

TODAY’S LAST word comes from Lavin:

“I’m getting married on August 17th,” he said. “And John Wooden has agreed to be my best man.”

And some people didn’t think he was a good recruiter.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.