UCLA Has a Day to Forget

A spanking sends a message. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, anyway.

UCLA absorbed the hardwood equivalent of corporal punishment Saturday in a 97-72 loss to No. 7 Arizona at Pauley Pavilion, and the Bruins went away muttering about the various and sundry ways they needed to improve to keep pace with such fast company.

Eventually, though, it’s best to forget the humiliation and get on with life. Asked the last time a team of his gave up 97 points, UCLA Coach Ben Howland replied: “I can’t remember.”

Therein lies a lesson just as valuable as the ones administered by brutish and brazen Wildcats Channing Frye, Salim Stoudamire and Hassan Adams, who combined for 74 points.

Essential to Howland’s leading Northern Arizona to its first NCAA tournament berth in 1998 was forgetting the 111 points the Lumberjacks surrendered to California to open the 1995-96 season, and the 101 they gave up to Weber State and Arkansas the next two years.

“The key is how you respond to defeat,” Howland said. “It should bother you.”

And then be swept into the dustbin.

At 9-4 overall and 5-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference, UCLA is still ahead of where anyone but the most optimistic fans in the near-sellout crowd of 12,621 could have projected.

Arizona (11-3, 3-2), in fact, trails the Bruins in the conference because of losses to Stanford and USC in its two previous games. How long that’s the case will be up to UCLA, which must face No. 3 Stanford and California on the road this week.

“We really needed this if we were going to stay in the race,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said.

Other lessons were less esoteric. UCLA was pushed around in the paint by Wildcat center Frye, whose 26 points and 10 rebounds led everyone. He had six offensive rebounds, turning several into putback baskets.

Other problems surfaced. The Bruins did a poor job of stopping dribble penetration, which led to kickout passes to open Wildcat shooters on the perimeter. Arizona made 14 of 23 from three-point range, Stoudamire’s seven of 11 and Adams’ four of eight leading the way.

Meanwhile, the Bruins couldn’t keep up offensively because their centers were not scoring threats, their wing players couldn’t beat defenders with a dribble and Olson surprised them with a zone defense.

Forward T.J. Cummings, coming off two double-doubles, had 12 points and two rebounds. Guard Dijon Thompson scored 19 points but made only two of nine three-point attempts and forward Trevor Ariza scored 18 on four-for-13 shooting.

“We really jammed them inside and took our chances on the perimeter shot,” said Olson, who became the all-time Arizona leader with his 510th victory.

“It’s unusual for us to play zone, and we played nothing but zone.”

Meanwhile, Howland second-guessed himself for not using a zone to slow Frye and seal off penetration.

Arizona scored on its first six possessions for a 15-7 lead and UCLA never recovered. The closest the Bruins got was within five points 10 minutes into the game.

Stoudamire made consecutive three-pointers to extend the lead from seven to 13 points with five minutes left in the first half and it took a three-pointer by Cedric Bozeman and a nifty feed from Bozeman to Cummings for a layup in the last minute to get UCLA within 48-37 at halftime.

The second half was more of the same. A jump shot by Cummings that cut the margin to seven got the crowd going momentarily, but a putback by Frye killed the momentum, starting Arizona on an eight-point run.

UCLA trailed by 30 with five minutes left, conjuring memories of last season’s losses of 35 and 36 points to Arizona. But the Wildcats seemed to lose interest and didn’t score for nearly three minutes.

Arizona was 8-0 when scoring more than 80 points before its 99-90 loss to USC on Thursday. The trend held true against UCLA, which could not keep pace once the scoreboard began lighting up like a pinball machine.

Howland, especially, is ill at ease with a rapid up-and-down style. UCLA had given up more than 75 points only once, and that was during an overtime victory at Washington.

At Pittsburgh the previous four seasons, the most points his team allowed was 88 in a December 2000 loss at Penn State. He is molding UCLA in the image of Pittsburgh, so perhaps developing patience will be the most enduring lesson of all.

“They were patient, but they got the shot they wanted fast,” Cummings said. “We got caught up in their pace at times and got away from what we do best. We keep learning about ourselves, and this was a painful way to do it.”

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L.A. Road Block

Arizona lost to USC on Thursday and defeated UCLA on Saturday to earn a split in Los Angeles. However, Wildcat Coach Lute Olson’s record in 42 conference road games against the Trojans and Bruins is below .500. A look at how the Wildcats have fared by region against Pacific 10 Conference schools and a breakdown of their wins and losses in L.A. in the Olson era:

*--* Olson by Region (Schools) Record Olson in L.A. Times IN LOS ANGELES (UCLA, USC)...20-22 BEAT UCLA, LOST TO USC...5 IN WASHINGTON (Wash., Wash. State)...32-8 BEAT USC, LOST TO UCLA...10 IN OREGON (Oregon, Oregon State)...27-13 BEAT UCLA, USC...3 IN BAY AREA (California, LOST TO USC, UCLA...3 Stanford)...28-14 AT TEMPE, ARIZ. (Arizona State)...16-5

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* ANOTHER SPLIT: In the Pac-10 tournament at Staples Center, Arizona lost to UCLA in 2003 and defeated USC in 2002.