X Marks This Bruin Streak

If the UCLA Bruins didn’t get the message at the beginning of the game--when the starting lineup looked like something out of a fantasy camp that promised a chance to play at Pauley Pavilion--they must have understood by the end.

The deciding moments of UCLA’s 68-63 victory over USC Wednesday night had nothing to do with athleticism or skill. It was sheer effort, the stuff of which rebounds are made.

And there was JaRon Rush, working on both sides of the rim to pull down a rebound and another rebound. There was Earl Watson, hopping up off his back to get his missed three-point shot, and Travis Reed keeping the rally alive and Rush again and then Watson again, earning himself a trip to the free-throw line.

Effort. That’s all coaches ask for. They will find reasons to justify turnovers or poor shooting, but they’ll never excuse lack of effort.

“Of course, it’s nice to win, but more important was the level of effort and intensity,� UCLA Coach Steve Lavin said.

It wasn’t there in that 85-67 loss at California Saturday. So Lavin shuffled the lineup and Sean Farnham and Brandon Loyd got to hear their names announced as starters.

Lavin said he wasn’t worried about causing turmoil this late in the season, with the NCAA tournament looming. Besides, the players didn’t seem to fret.

“We’ve had 18 different lineups,� Baron Davis said. “Another one isn’t going to kill us.�

Lavin said the reason he benched some of his regular rotation players was to make sure the Bruin program had an “environment of accountability,� where anything less than full effort was unacceptable.

Well, if they don’t start to learn the value of free throws, the environment won’t matter one bit. They’ll be in a world of trouble come March.

The Bruins don’t get to the line very often, not that they’re very effective once they’re there. Entering Wednesday’s game, opponents have made almost as many free throws as the Bruins have attempted. The Bruins, who have the worst free-throw percentage in the Pacific 10 Conference, had been outscored, 504-333, from the line.

They did their best to give USC every avenue to win by making only 12 of 26 free throws Wednesday night. The only thing that prevented UCLA’s third consecutive loss was board work.

With the Bruins ahead by two points and 2:25 remaining, Watson missed two free throws. But Rush started his rebounding sequence, which ended with him being fouled. He made only one of his two free throws, but that was one more point than they would have had.

After a USC turnover, a missed three-point shot by Watson triggered the second sequence of rebounding aggression, resulting in another free throw.

It was a lot of work for only two points, but it stretched a two-point lead to four with 1:12 remaining and helped limit the Trojans to only one quick possession over a stretch of almost 90 seconds.

The Bruins needed to do whatever they could to avoid a loss Wednesday. They’re past the point where they can consider losses to be character-builders.

Close losses to tough teams like Stanford can be a learning experience and even be a positive in the eyes of the NCAA men’s basketball committee when it selects its field for the tournament.

But UCLA did a little too much laurel-resting. The satisfaction began setting in at halftime of the Stanford game. After playing perhaps their best defense of the season in the first 20 minutes, the Bruins allowed deeper penetration by the Stanford guards and easier shots in the second half.

Then everything disintegrated in the Cal game, when the Bruins allowed the Bears to do about anything they wanted.

The only good thing to come out of that lost weekend in the Bay Area was Davis. He played with the confidence of a guy using a marked deck of cards, scoring 23 points at Stanford and a career-high 27 at Cal.

But Davis didn’t have it Wednesday night. His knees were bothering him, so much so that he had to sit on the bench and couldn’t stand in the huddle with his teammates during a 20-second timeout in the first half.

Davis did help them out on the court, with four assists in the first half (he finished with seven). He came up with 10 of his 17 points in the second half, including a fallaway jump shot to beat the shot clock and secure the victory with 36.2 seconds remaining.

Davis got a couple of favorable bounces before the ball dropped through. A reward for the hardest worker on the team, Lavin said.

“The harder you work, the luckier you get,� Lavin said. “He’s going to get those bounces.�

So Lavin’s little lesson paid off for a night. The coaching staff liked the sweat factor.

“That’s where we need to be,� assistant Michael Holton said.

In that one component, yes. But to get to their final destination--and anything less than a trip to the Sweet 16 would be a disappointment--they’ve got to find a half-court offense, stop committing bad fouls on the perimeter and start making free throws.

Now it’s time to get technical.