Swanson: UCLA plays hard and together — and it could pay off

LOS ANGELES — The old heads have a text thread. They call it “Bruin Brothers.” Fifteen or so former UCLA basketball players, including Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes and Larry Farmer — who was the one telling me about it the other day.

Telling me that all of those men, many of them champions many times over, are still very much tied up in the fate of the UCLA program. They’re all in on Bruins basketball, with its rich legacy, its 11 national championships and the dogged pursuit of an elusive 12th — which you can trust these proud alumni will be trying to text into existence.

“If UCLA is playing a big game, USC, or when they get to the tournament, one guy will make a text message, ‘Oh, man, I’m nervous,’ ” Farmer said. “And before you know it, guys are just chiming in.”

Some of them didn’t need to type out their thoughts on Saturday. Farmer and other members of the 1973 national championship team were honored at halftime at Pauley Pavilion, where No. 4 UCLA (27-4) rested its case for claiming a top seed in the NCAA tournament.

Their gavel: a regular-season-punctuating 82-73 victory over No. 8 Arizona.

Their 10th consecutive victory gave these Bruins a program-record 18 in conference play and extended their home winning streak to a best-in-the-nation 25 games. And Jaime Jaquez Jr., with his 22 points on 9-for-18 shooting and 10 rebounds, bolstered his case to become UCLA’s first Pac-12 Player of the Year since Kevin Love in 2008.

That it feels like a possibility that in another 50 years, these Bruins could be honored like Farmer’s were? That’s a testament to how Farmer-like Mick Cronin’s crew is.

Yes, Jaquez heard “M-V-P!” chants from the sellout crowd of 13,659 on Saturday. And, obviously, there’s Tyger Campbell, the one with the flair and the awesome hair, running point. Also, there’s senior David Singleton, who is the team’s big-shot taker and go-to speaker off the bench.

But what can’t be overlooked about those seasoned seniors is how dutifully they fulfill their roles, staying on-script and seeing — as Farmer wrote in his love letter of a book, “Role of a Lifetime” — “how teamwork wins games.”

That’s what Farmer said he digs about what Cronin & Co. are doing currently: The collective buy-in, the rugged harmony that’s on display.

“Great kids,” said Farmer, who was the reliable contributor who helped the Bruins go 89-1 and win three of their 10 national championships under John Wooden, and who became UCLA’s first Black coach in any sport when he took the reins of the basketball program in 1982.

“They play hard and play together and they improve as the season goes along.”

With the Pac-12 tournament this week, preceding the NCAA bracket reveal next Sunday, March 12, the Bruins were marching right into the awaiting madness, in sync and on a string — a string that was painfully severed Saturday, when Jaylen Clark froze after a steal and layup before hobbling toward his bench.

Jaylen Clark please be ok pic.twitter.com/lPr8rdsrEr

— Ucla Breakdown (@uclabreakdown) March 5, 2023

The favorite to win the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, the junior was done for the game and perhaps for much longer.

His absence won’t better the Bruins’ prospects. Of course not. But even without the proverbial head of the snake defensively, expect UCLA still will have plenty of bite, still prove an awful dancing partner.

Because it’s not easy to groove with shackles on, it’s tough to get loose or find any sort of rhythm in a bustling crowd of defenders who have, in some cases, been to nine of these parties before. The seniors on this UCLA squad played in six NCAA tournament games en route to their Final Four appearance in 2021, and then three more last season.

They’re experienced, they’re savvy, and they’re playing the type of team defense that gets the people going, gets them cheering steals like they’re logo 3s, rooting for rerouted passes like they’re rim-rocking jams.

And that, in the tight confines of the postseason, when every possession carries extra weight, can flummox even the most offensively adept teams. Like Arizona, whose 83.1 points-per-game average is fourth highest in the nation.

Naturally, his team’s defensive effort was top of mind for Cronin following Saturday’s victory over the Wildcats. Before he took questions, UCLA’s fourth-year coach opened his postgame presser by relaying the important defensive tallies: “Great win for us: We got the 40 deflections, forced 17 turnovers against an excellent team — an excellent offensive team.”

The result: Arizona’s eighth-lowest scoring game this season, which also was the fourth-most points UCLA has allowed. That should give you a sense of how stingy these Bruins are.

On average, they’re allowing 60.1 points per game (sixth-best nationwide) and have a 5.7 turnover-to-assist margin (second-best), so their opponents are having a heck of a time just getting shots off. Teams have fewer field goal attempts against the Bruins than against all but 10 other teams across college basketball.

“I’ve never been on a team where I felt so confident in my guys, that if we need to get a stop, we will get a stop,” Jaquez said. “Like, the final three minutes of the game, when it’s crunch time and we need one, I feel like we’re one of the best teams in the country to get the stop.”

And that’s Cronin’s leading scorer — Jaquez is averaging 17.3 points per game — talkin’ defense, sounding a lot like Farmer, who understood the assignment when he played the role of connector and defender and overall positive force on the floor.

“Coach Wooden wanted me to play relentless defense, set screens and score my points off offensive rebounds and fast breaks,” Farmer wrote in his book. “Coach wanted me to battle for defensive rebounds and execute the plays that featured the great players surrounding me. So that’s what I did.”

That’s what these Bruins — whether they’re tasked with the bulk of the scoring or facilitating or something else — are doing. Proving to be stars in their roles.

And if they clamp down hard enough in the coming weeks, they’ll not only set off a flurry of text messages, they also might remember their duties, as Farmer does, as the roles of their lifetimes.

Another very special guest – Larry Farmer spoke and signed copies of his new book at today’s Bruin Bash event. #BruinProud #AlumniDen #GoBruins pic.twitter.com/L6022tm5NK

— UCLA Alumni (@UCLA_Alumni) March 5, 2023

The '73 Bruins were the fourth team in school history to finish 30-0, and the first team in NCAA history to have consecutive 30-0 seasons. Pretty, pretty good. https://t.co/f4zFxR3BgD pic.twitter.com/xDWithsRS5

— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) March 5, 2023