As UCLA Unravels, Lavin Hangs by Thread

The most intense flurry of activity at UCLA did not occur on the floor at Pauley Pavilion, where the Bruins stumbled to another loss, this one to St. John’s, 80-65, Saturday.

Rather, it was a cadre of reporters chasing Athletic Director Dan Guerrero up the stairs, out the door and into the sunlight to inquire about the dark cloud hanging over the basketball team.

Unwilling to comment on much of anything since he fired football coach Bob Toledo a month ago, Guerrero made one point clear.

Coach Steve Lavin will not be dismissed during the season.

“I’ve never advocated changing coaching in the middle of the year,” Guerrero said. “I’ve been consistent on letting coaches do their job, then I evaluate at the end of the season.”

Clearly, though, the evaluation is underway and the conclusion is almost unavoidable: Lavin will be gone the moment the last errant pass is flung, the last forced three-point shot is hoisted, the last loose ball is grabbed by an opponent.

The five Sweet 16 appearances and 69.6% winning percentage in Lavin’s six seasons have been obscured by this sour season as fully as the blue-and-gold UCLA circle at center court one hour after the game.

Long after most of the 8,503 in attendance, mainly disgusted Bruin fans, had departed, a dozen or so St. John’s supporters swarmed the circle for a group photo with Coach Mike Jarvis.

Meanwhile in the Bruin locker room, forward Josiah Johnson was red-eyed with tears.

“Every time, every game, we can’t do enough to win,” he said. “There isn’t one team we shouldn’t have beat. Talent-wise we can keep up with any team in the country.”

For the first time, the Bruins, who are 4-7 for the first time since 1988, were bombarded by fewer questions about their poor play than about the fitness of their coach and the fickleness of their fans.

“If [Lavin] is here next year, he’s here,” forward Dijon Thompson said. “If he’s not, he’s not.

“It’s the team in [the locker room] we play for. We’d play in an empty gym.”

Forward T.J. Cummings, a junior, has heard rumblings about his coach before, just never this loudly, never with a first-year athletic director already having proven he will wield the ax.

“His job has always been in jeopardy,” Cummings said. “That’s why there is so much pressure on him all the time. If you match his win-loss record to other coaches, it’s good.”

But it has taken a beating lately. And a major reason is the Bruins’ inability to play well down the stretch of a close game.

A St. John’s offensive foul after UCLA pulled within 44-38 on a muscle basket by forward Andre Patterson had the crowd behind the Bruins for the first time. But Cummings rushed a perimeter jump shot and the Red Storm responded with eight points in a row, six by forward Anthony Glover.

“I had just knocked down a jumper and I saw they were sagging on that play,” Cummings said. “But we need to stop taking those type of shots. I know that.”

Cummings was hardly alone in making a foolish play.

Moments after Cummings’ shot, point guard Ryan Walcott made an errant pass that led to a dunk by Glover, and compounded the mistake seconds later by fouling St. John’s guard Tristan Smith on a wild three-point attempt. Smith made three free throws.

UCLA forward Jason Kapono scored 22 points and had eight rebounds, but he missed several open jump shots when the Bruins were trying to claw back.

St. John’s had no starter taller than 6 feet 7, yet the Red Storm held a 43-34 rebounding edge and the Bruin interior defense was porous. Glover had 22 points and nine rebounds and forward Kyle Cuffe had 11 points and 12 rebounds.

Guard Marcus Hatten, an All-America candidate, scored 23 points but deflected praise to the forwards.

“We were more aggressive, bumping people on defense and taking the ball inside,” Hatten said. “Our big guys responded.”

Big or small, the Bruins did not.

After losing to USC, Lavin expected his team to come out fighting. But the Bruins did not score until their sixth possession.

“I was disappointed in the first half,” Lavin said. “Defensively we didn’t play with the energy we needed to, and offensively we didn’t play with intelligence.”

The result was a 35-23 deficit and UCLA’s lowest point total for a half this season.

Nearly every game, in fact, seems to bring a new low.

“We had the same problems we had against the Trojans,” Lavin said. “Our tendency is to wait for something to happen ... rather than make something happen.”

Guerrero apparently is in a waiting mode as well -- although the performance of this team is testing his patience.

“We have tremendous fan support,” he said. “But our fans want to see the team do well.”