Déjà vu? Let's hope not ...
What is it, exactly, about the California Golden dadgum Bears that makes the UCLA men's basketball program go into hibernation? Explain to me, pretty please, why the Bruins tend to defend their home court with reckless abandon and a killer instinct against the Arizonas, Arizona States, Washington States, Louisvilles and (of course) Cal State Fullertons of the world, but when it comes to the always beatable Bears, the storyline suddenly changes.
It happened again Saturday at Pauley Pavilion. For the third straight year. What's the story? What is it about Cal that requires UCLA to pull an el foldo on its home court, every year?
Beats the crap outta me. The answer to this perplexing dilemma, I'm afraid, lies outside my realm of understanding. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that not too many of the Bruins understand either.
But it's something. And, oh man, is it annoying. You know, I could handle losing every year at home to, say, North Carolina. But taking it on the chin from a band of yip-yapping punks and their root-'em-on prick of a coach is just a tad much to stomach on an annual basis.
But, hey, I digress. I should not spend today bitterly barbing the boys from Berkeley, no matter how much they deserve a continual verbal flogging. No, the issue that needs to be explored is, again, why. Why, pray tell, did Saturday happen?
There are many potential explanations, many of which have been relegated to the role of cliché by past Bruin teams. We just weren't up for it, I don't know why. They flat outplayed us. They did a great job defensively and they made their shots. We were just a little out of sync, things weren't clicking. Don't worry, we'll be fine.
And maybe the answer does lie in that pile of garbage, versions of which we've all heard ad nauseum for years at this school (and not just in this sport, either). But I don't think it's that simple, and therein lies the troubling aspect of the Saturday analysis. I think that within this team, as within every single UCLA basketball team I've followed, there lives some sort of monster that's able to jump up and ruin a season. Every year, I just get this icky feeling (Ever gotten one of those? Well, you're missing out.) that things are on the verge of falling apart.
And gawd, I hope I'm wrong I'm starting to feel a little bit icky. It's not just losing at home that gets me. Nor the fact they lost to Cal. Those are forgivable sins. It's the way it happened. It's the fact that, for the first time all year, I saw a team Saturday that played as if winning was a foregone conclusion. Not a team that desperately wanted to win, but one that figured it would win regardless.
Now, the players on this team promised each and every one of us and, more importantly, they promised themselves that this season, there would be no taking of such attitudes. Not once, they claimed, would they act like they did at 14-0 last year. A refresher course: We're No. 1 in the damn country. How could we possibly lose to Cal?
Yeah, well. 1995, we were told, was all about treating every Washington like an Arizona, every Oregon State like a tournament game. Up for every game, that was the goal.
But it didn't happen Saturday. The Bruins weren't up. And, frankly, there's really no excuse for not being up for a game such as that. Except and here's the scary part that maybe they thought they didn't need to be up. Maybe they started believing the hype. And every member of this team that survived last year's debacle can tell you all about that. The 1993-94 Bruins believed the hype, even though that's all it was hype. And they flunked the final exam.
This year's team, I'm afraid, heard so much of the hype after the Arizona weekend (and deservedly so) that, maybe, just maybe, some of it registered. Hey, we're one of Dick Vitale's eight teams to watch now. Hot diggity dog ... wait a second, why are all those Cal guys celebrating?
I don't know, just a theory. Again, it's hard to prove, considering not a single player on this team, I'm convinced, actually employs such thoughts consciously (contrary to my opinion of a few past Bruins). But deep down, waaaaaay down there, who knows. Now, if I have this basketball team pegged correctly (and, I must admit, I was nowhere near the target on last year's team at this point) I would guess that they will work their collective rump off this week and get back to the Washington State-Arizona-Arizona State-Stanford (first half) level. I just refuse to believe that this group of young men is capable of another 1994-ish collapse. They are different, I am convinced of that.
Of course, they picked a pretty rough occasion to test the bounceback theory: USC at the Sports Arena. Well, I take that back. USC's pretty darn horrible. But even so, if my prediction is incorrect and 1994 starts rearing its despicable head again, it wouldn't matter if the Bruins were playing Montana State at the Helena Sports Arena. Last year's crew proved it could lose to the most insignificant of foes (hello, Tulsa) on the most significant of occasions (goodbye, tournament). So, at least from this point of view, it feels like gut check time for the Bruins. And not just because they can't really afford another conference loss right now.
They've got to go into the South Central sinkhole Thursday night, kick tail and take names (and then run really fast back to the bus) for the simple reason of psyche. After Kentucky, after LSU, etc., this club really believed what it was saying. We're not 1994. We're a different team. We won't make those mistakes again. That psyche was tested with the flop up at Oregon. And the Bruins responded. They were told that the Arizona trip was the toughest in Jim Harrick's three-decade career. And they responded.
Time to answer the bell again, boys.