UCLA Needs New Blood on the Bench

So UCLA did it. The Bruins beat USC Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion. Wow. Without two of its top six players, USC couldn’t quite complete the season sweep of UCLA. Let the party begin. Instead of only having hopes of an NIT invitation, the Bruins can still cling to hopes of an NCAA tournament bid, can still maybe fool themselves that a national championship might still be theirs this season.

How sad is this though? Celebrating a season split with USC. There are certain college basketball programs--Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana and, yes, UCLA--that should never, ever think about the NIT. Yet since last weekend’s blitzing by Stanford and Cal, reality was ugly. Even the NIT was no guarantee for UCLA.

UCLA’s head coach should always be a man of certain accomplishments, of impeccable credentials. Just as Adolph Rupp did at Kentucky, John Wooden made the head coaching position at his school sacred.

The job should not be given as a reward for being at the right place at the right time. It should not belong to a thirty-something whose idea of creativity is changing uniform colors instead of defenses.

UCLA’s head coach should be a man who will make heads turn in Los Angeles. A man who has the star power to be noticed by paparazzi, a man who has a resume of accomplishments so compelling that recruits are honored to receive his call instead of making him grovel at their shoe company-sponsored feet.

So here’s an idea.

Bring in Rick Pitino.

OK, maybe it’s far-fetched. Probably it will never happen. Steve Lavin has a roll-over contract and will not be easy to get rid of.

But how good would it look to see Pitino sitting in Wooden’s old place?

Pretty blue-and-gold good.

Maybe Pitino can be convinced to come to Los Angeles.

He almost did once, you know.

The Lakers recruited Pitino a few years ago. Pitino and his family were intrigued, but the timing wasn’t right. The Pitinos were entranced by Westwood, the ocean, the sun, the tradition. Pitino, though, worried about taking his kids out of high school and, besides, he had not yet accomplished at Kentucky what he wanted to do.

Which was to save the program.

When Pitino had arrived at UK, the program worshiped by a state was a mess. There was probation left behind by Eddie Sutton and a legacy, which went back far before Sutton, of a statewide alumni gone out of control, big-shot fans who had the run of the locker room, kids who felt entitled to anything, everything, because they played for the Big Blue.

New Kentucky Athletic Director C.M. Newton, who played for Rupp and coached against him and who is considered by many to be the best athletic director in the nation, took a chance.

He brought to Kentucky a brash, cocky, confident Easterner, an Italian to a city of grits and gravy. And Pitino just put down his foot and said, “My way.”

Pitino emptied the locker room of the hangers-on. Pitino emptied the program of malcontents. Pitino taught a breathless brand of frenetic yet patient basketball. The defense was constant pressure. The offense was constant up-tempo. In practice, Pitino was patient and impatient all at once, a teacher of extraordinary talent. In games, Pitino was a manic in Armani and in a matter of half a season, Armani wasn’t pretentious in Lexington anymore. It was fashionable.

By the time Pitino left for the Boston Celtics, the Kentucky tradition was back and better. There was a national title and a championship game appearance for Pitino, and then his successor, Tubby Smith, won a title too with mostly Pitino players. There were no longer even hints of scandal, no nefarious recruiting, no NCAA investigators hanging around, and Kentucky again was college basketball’s winningest program.

Pitino could do this in Westwood.

Peter Dalis should try and persuade him.

It has become no secret that Pitino is not entirely happy in Boston anymore and there are many Celtics, fans and team officials who wonder if Pitino is the right man for the NBA.

Where he can teach in college, Pitino can only hope to cajole his multimillionaires in the NBA. His up-tempo style predicated on defense is fun in college but considered draining in the NBA.

Dalis could appeal to Pitino’s ego. Certainly Pitino has a big one. That’s OK. You need a big ego in Los Angeles. Pitino’s big ego allowed him to stare down 24,000 UK fans at Rupp Arena and tell them things would now be done the Pitino way.

But you need a reason to own that ego. Pitino does. He’s a great college coach.

And his stature would only grow were he to come now to UCLA and make the Bruin program as classy, as special, as consistently good, as it was under Wooden.

If Pitino had the chance to do at UCLA what he did at Kentucky, his legacy would be as the man who rebuild two of the nation’s best college programs. The only coach to have done that.

Pitino would not be intimidated by Wooden’s legacy, by Wooden’s presence. He would be happy for it and then he would go on his way, coaching his way, running a program his way because Pitino knows, absolutely knows, his way is the best way.

Pitino would not be intimidated by Los Angeles, either. He has enough money. He can afford a big, beautiful house in Bel-Air or Beverly Hills or Malibu. He can afford the clothes, the cars, the look. It all comes naturally to Pitino.

Pitino is comfortable in any college gym, in any college setting, because he knows he belongs. He knows he is the best.

UCLA, and all of college basketball, deserves no less.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com