At Least Bruins’ Q-Rating Is Getting Better

It’s a rare thing in sports when players openly say the other team quit, rarer still when a coach of Lute Olson’s bearing says it too.

Most telling of all is that no one from UCLA has ever protested when Arizona’s players and coach have used the “Q” word to describe the 35-point blowout last season at Pauley Pavilion.

The margin this time was 25.

Was that really so much better for the Bruins?

Arizona’s players seemed more gracious than gloating after their 97-72 victory Saturday when they said they believed it was.

“I thought last year they kind of gave up,” guard Salim Stoudamire said. “This year they fought to the end.”

Forward Hassan Adams, who snubbed UCLA for Arizona when he was recruited out of Westchester High, said he saw a difference too.

“They’re playing with more passion. They’re playing like they want it,” Adams said.

To center Channing Frye, the change was almost visible.

“The swagger, the confidence they had was something I didn’t see last year,” he said. “The last time I saw it was my freshman year, when they had Dan Gadzuric, Matt Barnes and those guys.

“We understood just because they’ve got a lot of the same people, they’re nothing like last year. Don’t be fooled by the score. They played us tough. That’s just what happens sometimes.”

The final score, apparently, is what happens when Arizona’s remarkable stockpile of young talent plays as well as it is capable of playing.

Arizona entered the game backed against the wall in the Pacific 10 race almost before it had begun after being upset at USC Thursday on the heels of a loss to Stanford at home.

Perhaps UCLA fans, giddy over the Bruins’ 5-0 start in the Pac-10, should have taken note of one statistic:

Arizona hadn’t lost three consecutive conference games since the 1983-84 season, Olson’s first in Tucson.

The Wildcats still haven’t.

Fault UCLA for getting caught short by Arizona’s dizzying ball movement and leaving the Wildcats’ three-point shooters open. But credit Arizona for creating the openings and knocking down the shots.

If it wasn’t Frye inside, it was Adams and Stoudamire outside. Arizona shot 54% for the game and almost 61% from three-point range, making a stunning 14 of 23.

Stoudamire, the mercurial shooter who so often points which way Arizona will go, made seven of 11 from long range, finishing with 25 points, one fewer than Frye and two more than Adams, who made four of eight from three-point range.

“I’m not sure we could play any better than what we did,” Olson said.

The transformation was brought about by a players-only meeting after the 99-90 loss to USC, and by some stinging words from Olson, who called his team young, impatient and too concerned about looking cool.

“That’s when he questions your heart,” Stoudamire said. “Coach doesn’t hold things in. When he wants to say something, he says it.

“[Against USC], that was when we had that prima-donna attitude. Just show up and because it says Arizona on your jersey you’ll win the game.”

If this group of young players -- the starting lineup consists of a freshman, two sophomores and two juniors -- learns to play consistently before the end of this season, those savvy Stanford veterans might have competition in the Pac-10 after all.

“You limit how good you can be by your impatience,” said Olson, who had not been pleased with Arizona’s shot selection in the losses to Stanford and USC.

“I know patience is a problem with young people, but it’s time we grew up and realized it’s not about me, it’s about the team.”

Stoudamire is one who is learning those lessons, but it isn’t so much selfishness as self-absorption that he has to fight off when he is slumping.

“Salim is like a perfectionist,” Frye said. “If he misses one shot, he gets angry at himself. We have to say, ‘Salim, you’re an awesome shooter. We’ve got confidence in you.’

“Sometimes the ball goes through the net but hits the rim, and he’s angry.”

Stoudamire, four for 13 against USC and four for 14 against Stanford, acknowledged as much.

“It’s all mental with me,” he said. “As long as I stay positive, I’m OK. But when I mope ... I used to be horrible about it. That’s why I’ve been so up and down.”

Against Stanford and USC combined, Arizona made 12 of 51 three-pointers, a mere 24%. But the shots that were hurried or forced in other games were wide open and leisurely against UCLA.

“We had great offensive ball movement,” Olson said.

Because of that, they are 3-2 in the Pac-10, not 2-3.

“We all still feel we’re the best team in the country,” Stoudamire said.

They looked like it Saturday.

“We didn’t take to heart that they would come out and play this hard,” UCLA’s Dijon Thompson said.

Still, he didn’t think this season’s Bruins gave up.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “When you have a team playing that well, it’s hard to get up. But I think that we still have fight.”