This Was a Real Experience for UCLA

TUCSON —  They’re going to sell pieces of the McKale Center court at the end of this season when they replace it with a new state-of-the-art floor, charging up to $250 for bits of the court where Arizona is 183-17 since 1984.

If not for the Wildcats’ 87-75 victory Saturday, Arizona might have had to give Kris Johnson, J.R. Henderson and Toby Bailey a piece of the floor gratis: UCLA’s seniors had lost to Arizona only once in their careers and were trying to win at McKale for the third time in four seasons.

But on the night when Arizona hung its first national championship banner--didn’t it look a little lonely up there?--the Wildcats showed why they are ahead of UCLA for now--even if they have already been beaten three times this season.

Arizona didn’t have anybody who could handle the penetration of UCLA’s whirling dervish freshman, Baron Davis, but Davis’ foul trouble and an off game for Henderson allowed Arizona to surge by UCLA in the second half on balance, experience and will to win.

“I don’t think Baron and their other freshman, Earl Watson, knew what to expect. They seemed kind of shell-shocked,” said Arizona’s Miles Simon, the senior guard who calls UCLA “the game I love to play in the most.

“I think our experience overall made the difference. [Davis and Watson] kind of shook when they had the ball, and didn’t look to score so much.”

Simon scored a season-high 27 points, swingman Michael Dickerson scored 24 and guard Mike Bibby--a freshman himself last season--scored 20.

Davis scored five points but picked up his fourth foul with 13:25 to play and UCLA trailing by four points, not to return until eight minutes remained with the Bruins down seven after falling behind by as many as 12.

“This team has been there before, as opposed to the freshman guards for UCLA,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. “Those are two outstanding players. It’s difficult to come into a place like this. I’m sure they haven’t experienced a crowd like this tonight.”

Bibby isn’t good enough defensively to guard Davis one-on-one all night, but he was smart enough to take him out of the game by driving on him.

“Part of what we did with Baron was we wanted to take it to him,” Olson said. “Mike Bibby with the ball is really quick. He went by him and that’s what caused a number of his fouls. The experience was a big factor and the crowd was a huge factor.”

It wasn’t just the difference between a set of guards that have been to the Final Four and a couple who have only been to Anchorage, though.

Arizona has every starter back from last season.

UCLA is still finding itself after re-integrating Kris Johnson--who was terrific in the first half--and center Jelani McCoy after both served suspensions.

“The circumstances are probably a little similar to what happened with us once Miles got back [from academic trouble last season],” Olson said. “They’re comfortable together in practice, but it still takes time to get used to games--the substitutions, accepting roles.”

It’s a rare thing when an NCAA champion has three losses before it has hung its banner--but that’s partly because Arizona waited so long to unfurl its first national championship banner, choosing to do it with UCLA in town.

It’s also because of a tough Arizona schedule. UCLA has played two top-10 teams--North Carolina and New Mexico--and both before Johnson and McCoy returned.

Arizona beat Kentucky handily in November in a title-game rematch in Hawaii, then lost to Duke, Kansas and Florida State--all top-10 caliber teams. But in those Duke and Kansas losses, Arizona fought back from deep deficits to make games close--an ability that will help the Wildcats down the road.

“I was asked, ‘How do you feel about the three losses?’ ” Olson said. “I couldn’t care less about the three losses. Most of the time it isn’t November and December, it’s February and March that matter.

“I think it’s gone about as we would have expected. When you have a schedule like we went into. . . . We went in with a veteran team, and the worst thing you can do is play a bunch of teams you’re not going to learn anything against. We went in knowing these would be tough games. We’ve won some of them and lost some of them.”

They didn’t lose this one.

“This means a lot,” Simon said. “We’ve got an advantage now in the Pac-10 race.”

By the time they meet again though on March 7 at Pauley Pavilion, Davis and Watson won’t really be freshmen anymore, as coaches like to say.

“They’ll probably have grown up a lot by then,” Simon said.