A More Upbeat Ride Share

Early Tuesday evening, the UCLA Bruins boarded a bus in Westwood, heads high, spirits soaring, and headed to San Diego, where they will begin NCAA tournament play Thursday against Belmont University of Nashville.

Was it really less than a month ago that the Bruins boarded another bus, heads down, spirits plummeting, wondering if they were going anywhere at all?

The players had just left the Sports Arena, where they had suffered their most disheartening loss of the season. Suddenly, all assumptions about postseason play seemed to be off.

After surviving a string of injuries that ultimately struck all 12 scholarship players, UCLA had become a strong contender for the Pacific 10 Conference title. The Bruins had lost to the Washington Huskies eight days before, but that had been in Seattle against a talented team eventually headed for the NCAA tournament.

The Trojans? They were struggling to stay at .500 in Pac-10 play, were without their second-leading scorer, Gabe Pruitt, and had lost to UCLA by 21 points in their previous meeting.

It wasn’t only that the Bruins wound up losing to the Trojans, but how they lost. A club known for its defense had allowed USC to shoot 56.3%. A team that prides itself on sealing off inside penetration had allowed the Trojans to dribble past defenders unchallenged.

“It was so quiet on that bus trip, you could hear a pin drop,” fifth-year senior Cedric Bozeman said.

Freshman Alfred Aboya called it “a sad trip.”

Fellow freshman Darren Collison wondered if he and his teammates, with only the USC game on their plate that week, had taken it too easy in practice.

That wasn’t a problem when the Bruins returned to practice the following Tuesday. Their coach, Ben Howland, was waiting for them with fire in his eyes.

“We will have a demanding practice,” he said.

Said guard Jordan Farmar: “Our coach told us that we had let him down, let our teammates down, let our families down. We didn’t want to feel that anymore.

“We knew it was a lack of intensity, of effort, of toughness in that SC game.”

None of those things were absent in the vigorous practice that followed.

“I think it was our best practice of the year,” Howland said.

It might have been the turning point of the season as well, considering that the Bruins haven’t lost since. They have won seven games in a row, clinched their first conference title in nine seasons and won the conference tournament championship for the first time since 1987.

“That USC game was one of the most disappointing, heartbreaking games I’ve been associated with,” said senior center Ryan Hollins, who was scoreless in 22 minutes against the Trojans. “It definitely woke us up.”