Bruins Find a Method to the Madness

SAN DIEGO — They won by 34 points, UCLA's biggest victory margin in the NCAA tournament in a half-dozen years.

Ben Howland's players were asked if they were unprepared.

"That's a poor choice of words," he said, bristling. "We were \o7very \f7prepared."

After the first 14 minutes, UCLA went on a 52-12 run that was surly, suffocating and silenced even the bellowing Vince Gill.

Howland was asked, what happened those first 14 minutes?

"Those weren't jitters," he said sharply. "That was \o7adrenaline\f7."

UCLA won an NCAA tournament game for the first time in four years, Howland got his first NCAA tourney victory as their coach, the Bruins were dominant Thursday in a 78-44 win over tiny Belmont University.

Yet all anybody could talk about was Alabama.

That would be Saturday's juicy second-round game against Mark Gottfried, a former UCLA assistant coach who was on the bench for their 1995 championship and could have been the Bruin head coach if he had just stuck around and ...

"I understand," said Howland.

He does now.

While teams in the rest of the tournament wax about the cliches of Cinderella and slippers, UCLA deals in the realities of dungeons and dragons, and so it is happening again.

Eleven national championships means forever having to say you're sorry, because it's never enough, not this time of year, especially not with a team that has won more games than any Bruin team since that last national title.

They had just finished what would be the most convincing victory in the tournament's first day. They held their opponent to exactly fewer points in an entire game as some tourney teams scored in one half.

Yet caught between dungeons of their past failures and the dragons of future expectations, the UCLA kids reacted in shrugs, sighs and shaking heads.

"There was no dunking the coach with water or anything of that nature," said Arron Afflalo. "We're on a mission now to win six games.... We won't really celebrate for another three weeks."

This was not the time for Gatorade showers, certainly, but what would have been wrong with, say, a trash can filled with confetti?

To all of those who scoffed at this victory, I have two words.

Detroit Mercy.

And, well, OK, two more words.

Back door.

Those who have watched UCLA suffer three giant first-round upsets in the last dozen years will not scoff at Thursday's victory, even if it did include an 18-12 Belmont lead with 6:44 remaining in the first half at Cox Arena.