Bruins take a beating in Berkeley

  DANIEL WONG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior forward
Jason Kapono, UCLA’s leading scorer, was held to
just 10 points in the Bruins’ loss to Cal at Haas Pavilion Thursday
night. Cal 69 UCLA 51

By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

BERKELEY “”mdash; Well, at least they tried.

That, of course, is probably of little consolation to the UCLA
men’s basketball team, which swore earlier this week that it
would lose its indifferent attitude, and did, but was nonetheless
pounded through the floor of Cal’s Haas Pavilion Thursday
night, 69-51.

The Bruins, as promised, were a different team, all right.

Only, instead of appearing lazy, as it did against Arizona State
last Saturday, the team appeared clueless ““ not exactly the
kind of progress UCLA head coach Steve Lavin was hoping to
make.

The Bruin loss, witnessed by the capacity crowd of 12,000,
dropped UCLA’s overall record to 17-9, 9-6 in Pacific 10
contests. Cal, which lost to the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion on Jan.
26, improved to 19-6, 10-5.

“They just beat us to every punch,” UCLA senior
guard Rico Hines said. “They beat us in every punch of the
game. We played hard, but we’re not into moral victories. We
need to get a win Saturday (at Stanford).”

As a symbol of their effort to pull together, Hines suggested
during Wednesday’s practice that all of the Bruins begin
wearing Jason Kapono-style white headbands whenever they took the
court.

They wore them during Wednesday’s practice and were
wearing them Thursday when the ball was thrown up for the opening
tip.

But by the start of the second half, at which time UCLA trailed
Cal 33-18, several of the players had taken them off.

By the way the game went for the Bruins in the first half,
it’s hard to blame them for shedding the extra gear. The
headbands were doing nothing for them except irritating their
foreheads, and they certainly didn’t make everyone shoot like
Kapono.

Even if they had, UCLA would have been in trouble, as it turned
the ball over 12 times in the first half and took only 21 shots, as
compared Cal’s 32.

Passing lanes to Kapono were sealed and center Dan Gadzuric
became the Bruins’ only viable option on offense, scoring 10
of his team-high 18 points in the opening period.

The rest of the Bruins, too slow or too weak to get inside and
too unskilled to hit from the outside, were left standing with
confused looks on their faces.

“I was real disappointed we weren’t more
patient,” Lavin said. “We should have waited for better
looks.”

At the same time, UCLA couldn’t stop Cal from getting easy
points in the paint. The massive Bear frontline that included
senior Solomon Hughes (12 total points) produced too many
mismatches for the Bruins to cover.

Matters got no better in the second half.

The Bruins found some rhythm on offense, but Cal reserve forward
Amit Tamir found some as well, scoring 14 of his 18 points in the
second half to seal the victory.

With 2:24 remaining and UCLA down 66-51, the frustration finally
manifested itself as a forearm from forward Matt Barnes.

Fighting for a rebound under the basket UCLA was defending, Cal
point guard Shantay Legans grabbed Barnes’ jersey by the
neck. Barnes responded by throwing a forearm to Legans’ head,
causing the Bear to crumble to the floor and remain unconscious for
nearly two minutes.

Barnes, who later said the shot was unintentional, was assessed
a flagrant foul and thrown out of the game.

As Barnes walked off the court, pennies were thrown at him and
at his family, who was in the stands. At that moment, any energy
the Bruins had appeared to be sapped out of them. For this game, at
least, that was it for UCLA.

But the Bruins promised ““ there’s that word again
““ to make an effort to make more of themselves.

“We’ve been through worse before,” Hines said.
“We just have to get tougher.”

And as for the headbands, Hines said, they’ll wear them
again next game. They haven’t given up yet.