Turn Around, It's UCLA

PALO ALTO — An athletic director weeps. A booster screams. A heckler sighs.

A coach still stands.

Steve Lavin was wearing a wrinkled T-shirt because his players--many who love him every bit as much as most of Los Angeles doesn't--doused him with cold water.

He was speaking with a wrinkled voice because he had just spent two hours screaming above the noise of the nation's only unbeaten team.

There were bite marks on his heels, blade wounds in his back, uncertainty in his future, and Rick Pitino in his face.

Yet, both unbelievably and not surprisingly, one of the best coaching jobs in college basketball this season is now on his resume.

UCLA stunned top-ranked Stanford on Saturday, 79-73, with an unblinking effort that dropped a formidable team to its knees while bringing a shaky coach to his feet.

For at least five hours.

As it has been for five years.

"Quit swearing!" a Maples Pavilion patron shouted to Lavin late Saturday.

"I'm fighting for my life here!" Lavin shouted back.

Fighting as he was fighting last year when the Bruins upset Stanford here in the NCAA tournament, or three years ago against Michigan in the tournament, or four years ago against everybody.

Fighting and--thanks to those confounding desperation roundhouses--staying upright.

That queasy, unsettling feeling in the stomach of critics Saturday when they realized their bloodied coach was going to bounce out of his corner again?

A familiar condition known as Lavin's Revenge.

"This coaching staff gets off the mat as well as anybody in America," assistant Michael Holton said.

A talk-show host howls. A columnist cringes. A city wonders.

What does this mean?

It must first be understood what it could have meant.

Lavin led a 17-point underdog to a victory over arguably the best team in America while strapped to a chair.

Pete Dalis had achieved the desired effect with his Pitino flirtations, distracting the team and uniting alumni in their efforts to buy out one coach and purchase another.

Moles inside the university academic departments were doing their part, gathering and leaking any potential embarrassing information to help support Dalis' case.

The media, this space included, revved up the weekly rants to record decibels.

"A carnival," Lavin said. "When you consider the last three weeks, this is clearly the most challenging stretch in my career."