UCLA waltzes its way to loss

Arron Afflalo refused to look for the bright spots.

Where was the rebounding, UCLA’s junior guard wondered? The good shots? The steely-eyed purpose? They were all missing.

Second-ranked UCLA, with the Pacific 10 Conference regular-season championship already secured and arguably an NCAA tournament No. 1 seeding already earned, didn’t score for the first six minutes Saturday and stumbled to a 61-51 loss to seventh-place Washington at the Bank of American Arena.

The crowd was ready for the 11 a.m. start even if the Bruins (26-4, 15-3) weren’t. Washington (18-12, 8-10) held UCLA to season lows in first-half points (20) and total points. After falling behind 9-0, UCLA also had a scoreless stretch of more than five minutes in the second half.

When the offensive wheels began turning, the Bruins were trailing, 48-32, and even when Afflalo and Josh Shipp made a couple of three-point baskets and Darren Collison followed with another a few minutes later, the Bruins only got as close as 52-51.

What followed was what Coach Ben Howland called a key moment.

Washington freshman Spencer Hawes tipped in a Justin Dentmon miss. Hawes finished with 13 points and 15 rebounds. Sophomore forward Jon Brockman had 20 points and 13 rebounds. It was a game Brockman called “the most physical we’ve played all year,” and it was the Huskies who willingly accepted the bumps and bruises, the elbows in the chest, refusing to back away.

Howland made no excuses, though he could have.

One of his top three inside players, Alfred Aboya, stayed in his warmups with ice on his left knee, nursing a bruise he sustained in UCLA’s conference-clinching win Thursday against Washington State.

In Aboya’s place, freshman James Keefe and sophomore Ryan Wright had a chance to show they have developed into reliable contributors. “What’d they get?” Howland asked. He already knew the answer. “Zero rebounds.”

The Bruins were outrebounded by 15 and shot 31.3% from the field. Collison was most befuddled offensively, with a two-for-15 shooting performance.

“He had some shots roll in and out,” Afflalo said of Collison. “But as a point guard he has to control the ball and handle what everybody else is doing. He can not and should not worry about his own opportunities.”

Afflalo didn’t limit his stern words to Collison.

“They out-physicaled us,” Afflalo said. “They outplayed us in every aspect of the game. It’s embarrassing. I don’t know what we think we were resting on. There is no excuse for us to come out on national television and we don’t compete.”

After conceding the 9-0 deficit early, the Bruins regained all but one point of that when freshman Russell Westbrook followed an Afflalo three-point basket with a layup to make the score 19-18. But the Huskies closed out the first half with an 11-2 run for a 31-20 lead.

“That was awful,” Collison said.

Early in the second half, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute scored after he rebounded a Collison miss to bring the Bruins within five points, 35-30, but before they scored again (on a Shipp layup), more than five minutes had elapsed. They scored one more basket in the next three minutes, but by then the Huskies were ahead, 48-34.

An Afflalo three-pointer kick-started the Bruins and Mbah a Moute and Shipp followed with three-point jumpers. With 2:55 left, Collison made a three-pointer to make it 52-51. After Hawes’ put back, and with about 16 seconds still left on the shot clock, Shipp, who scored a team-high 13 points, stepped back and shot a 24-footer. It missed and the energy seemed to leave the Bruins.

“It was a good shot,” Shipp insisted. “I had made one just like it.”

Howland said this was the most disappointing loss of the season.

Make-up time begins Thursday at 2:30 p.m. at Staples Center in the Pac-10 tournament quarterfinals. The top-seeded Bruins will play the winner of Wednesday’s game between eighth-seeded California and ninth-seeded Oregon State.

“I don’t think we’ll be flat again,” Collison said.

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diane.pucin@latimes.com