It’s a Good Thing They Showed Up

I made Arizona a 49-point favorite Saturday. My reasoning was this: Arizona won by a point over Stanford, which defeated UCLA by 48.

Secretly, though, I knew if the Good UCLA basketball team showed up at Pauley Pavilion instead of the Bad UCLA team--Steve Lavin is coaching both--there was a good chance Arizona wouldn’t win. Which is exactly what happened. The Bruins played the way I know--and they know, and Lavin knows, and everybody knows--they can play, winning in overtime, 84-78.

I once saw a UCLA basketball team with Toby Bailey, Cameron Dollar, J.R. Henderson, Kris Johnson and Charles O’Bannon win a national championship. Which was, you know, pretty cool.

But then I saw a UCLA team with Bailey, Dollar, Henderson, Johnson and O’Bannon do this: (a) lose to Princeton (Princeton!); (b) lose (at home) to Tulsa; (c) trail Kansas (at home) by 30 before halftime; (d) lose to Illinois by 16, then (f)--I’m skipping (e), because (f) is a failing grade--trail Stanford by 31 before halftime, then lose by 48. (By 48!) Which was, you know, definitely not cool.

Therefore, I had no idea which UCLA team to expect Saturday. Good UCLA? (The guys who can beat anybody.) Or Bad UCLA? (The guys who can beat Morgan State and Cal State Northridge.)

Some of the guys were still a little shellshocked from the Fiasco at Palo Alto.

“When you lose by 50 points,” Bailey said, “you have some doubts about yourself. We’ve been humbled.”

Others did their best to forget their worst.

“You can’t dwell on the past,” O’Bannon said. “After the Stanford loss, we just threw it away.”

As a senior and leader, O’Bannon is trying to glue the pieces back together. Charles lost his brother, Ed, to the NBA. He lost his coach, Jim Harrick, to unemployment. He lost the Princeton mess, then had to live with it. He saw Kansas mop up Pauley with this team. He saw Stanford eat this team up and spit it out.

Charles took charge.

“It’s my job. When something goes wrong, I’m supposed to do something. I’m a captain. It’s like being a role player . . . it’s part of my role.

“A lot of people in America aren’t giving us any respect. I want people to see that we’re a better team than the one they’ve been reading about.”

Sorry, Charlie.

But if this 1996-97 team wants respect, it has to earn it. I don’t want anybody losing by 48 points to Stanford, then telling me how his team doesn’t get the proper respect.

O’Bannon’s actions spoke louder than words Saturday.

He played one of his best games as a Bruin, scoring 24 points, making half of his shots, pulling down 13 boards. I have always enjoyed watching Charles O’Bannon, a classy guy, like his brother. I’ve also been waiting for Charles to bust loose as a player, and it might be time.

It better be, because UCLA’s next four games are on the road. They play an up-and-coming USC, an always-tough Louisville and a surprisingly tough Oregon. I could see Good UCLA coming home from this trip 4-0. I could see Bad UCLA coming back 0-4.

“We lost by a lot of points at Stanford,” O’Bannon said. “But it was only one game. It only counts once.”

Good thing. A 48-point loss usually gets a player or two benched.

Trouble is, UCLA doesn’t have two players to spare. This team is so thin, seven guys had to go the entire 45 minutes Saturday. And Bob Myers played only five. Bailey never left the court. O’Bannon got three minutes’ rest, Dollar four, Henderson five.

Lucky for them, Arizona’s players kept fouling out. At one point the Wildcats used a backcourt of Mike Bibby, a freshman, with Irvine’s Jason Lee, a senior. This was the first Bibby-and-Lee backcourt at Pauley since Mike’s father and Greg Lee started for UCLA 25 years ago.

Arizona’s Bibby and Lee both fouled out. That left it up to Miles Simon, the fine junior guard from Fullerton who broke up laughing before the game, after being greeted by UCLA’s fans with a chant that went, “Simon S---s!” (and I don’t mean Simon Says.)

Miles scored 23 points, and looked good. But in the end, Arizona lost, to that team we’ve all been waiting for, Good UCLA.