Washington takes away squad’s expected glory
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 11, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior forward
Matt Barnes tries to block the pass of
Washington’s Michael Johnson.
Washington 96 UCLA 94
By Chris Umpierre
Daily Bruin Staff
SEATTLE “”mdash; Entering the final weekend of the regular
season, the UCLA men’s basketball team had designs of rolling
into the NCAA tournament with two impressive wins.
Better scratch that idea.
After a lackluster win against Washington State on Thursday, the
No. 13 Bruins (21-8, 14-4 Pac-10) suffered an embarrassing 96-94
defeat at the hands of the Pac-10’s last-place Washington
Huskies (10-20, 4-14) Saturday in front of 8,611 spectators at Bank
of America Arena.
So instead of entering the tournament with momentum, the Bruins
go in crawling on their hands and knees.
“We played pretty bad tonight,” UCLA forward Matt
Barnes said. “We played pretty badly the whole road trip. We
snuck by (against WSU) then came back at the end and won. This time
we weren’t so lucky. If we want to make a run in the
tournament we can’t have this kind of stuff.”
Washington shooting guard Michael Johnson, who UCLA made look
like another Michael who also used to wear No. 23, was the
Huskies’ hero as he scored a career-high 29 points (21 more
than his average). Three of those points came on his game-winning
three-pointer he hit with 1.1 seconds left.
With Washington down a point and 3.6 seconds left, forward Greg
Clark threw an inbounds pass to Johnson, who rolled off a screen
for an amazingly open look at the basket. Bruin forward Jason
Kapono, who had been “guarding” Johnson all night, got
caught up in Washington center Will Perkins’ screen.
“I was surprised (it came so easy) because we had been
running that play all night,” said Johnson, who added that
the basket was the shot of his life. “I figured they might
want to jump out on me. But they got a guy taking a fadeaway
three-point shot, I’m sure that’s probably what they
wanted.”
When Perkins batted down Barnes’ ensuing inbounds pass,
the Washington players ““ five of whom were playing their last
game as seniors ““ went nuts.
But there was no way UCLA, who entered the game playing for a
No. 2 seed in the tournament, should have been in the position to
get beaten by the lowly Huskies.
This was a Washington team that not only was on an eight-game
losing streak and had lost 15 conference games by an average margin
of 20 points, but also had just been creamed by USC by 29 points
Thursday.
“This team shouldn’t have played with us
tonight,” Barnes said. “But we put ourselves in that
position. You can’t blame the finger at anyone but
ourselves.”
Most of the blame can be placed on UCLA’s poor ball
handling (they had a season-high 24 turnovers) and horrific
defense.
The 96 points Washington scored, almost 30 points more than
their average, were the most the Bruins had given up since their
first game of the year against Kansas. In addition to Michael
Jordan’s ““ err, Michael Johnson’s ““ scoring
spree, little-known Husky forward Thalo Green and Clark dropped 21
and 14 points, respectively.
UCLA Head Coach Steve Lavin didn’t open the team’s
locker room to the media for more than 45 minutes after the game,
ignoring the usual 10-minute cooling off period. It’s clear
the Bruins had a lot to talk about.
“It’s going to be a challenge (to come back from
this loss),” UCLA point guard Earl Watson said. “We
have to accept the challenge and face it. Our problem has never
been on the court. Our problem is more mental. Either we play
together or we don’t.
“Each person individually has to choose if they want to go
out there and play as a team or go out there and just get stats.
That’s been the biggest challenge. We have all the potential;
we have all the skills. We just have to choose what we want to
do.”
Watson was asked if a first-round tournament loss of the
Detroit, Mercy, Tulsa, or Princeton variety is waiting in the wings
for UCLA.
“No,” he said, “because I’m going to do
whatever it takes to win. Whatever it is, I’m going to do it.
It’s my last year. I’m going to try my hardest to pull
this together on the court and off the court. If I have to pull
someone to the side, I’m going to do it.”
Despite their disappointing play, it looked as if the Bruins
would squeak by the Huskies late in the game. They were up 91-89
with less than 40 seconds to play.
Then with 34 seconds to go, Watson fouled guard Bryan Brown
““ a 32 percent three-point shooter ““ on a three-point
attempt. Brown nailed the NBA-range bomb and the following free
throw to give his Huskies a 93-91 lead.
Watson then penetrated and tossed the ball to shooting guard
Billy Knight, who was alone in the corner. Knight promptly drilled
the trifecta to give UCLA a one-point lead. The shot set up
Johnson’s heroics.
Knight had no explanation for how his team could lose such a
game against an inferior opponent with so much riding on the
outcome. He did say that some of his teammates were looking past
the hapless Huskies.
“I think we have to focus more,” Knight said.
“I know a lot of us were thinking about the tournament
instead of this game.”
On the flight back from Seattle Saturday night, the somber
Bruins shared the plane with the USC basketball team.
It was a sight of two teams going in different directions. The
Trojans greatly improved their tournament seeding over the weekend
by dismantling both of the Washington schools.
As for UCLA, it was a lost weekend. No pun intended.
