This One Was No Shirt Thing

When you play Kansas, play Arizona, play Louisville, play Duke, you have a real reason to worry (unless maybe you’re playing football). UCLA plays each of those schools in basketball this season.

One school worries UCLA more than those opponents do. That school is USC, which has never been a top-25 regular in college hoops. USC always plays UCLA hard, no matter who’s playing for either side.

It happened again Thursday night, where by the time the Trojans took their warmup T-shirts off--the ones that read “1. Discipline. 2. Dedication. 3. Self-Motivation. 4. Enthusiasm. 5. Inner Peace.”--the score was USC 15, UCLA 5.

Except this time, this was no nationally ranked UCLA squad against some so-so USC bunch. This was a fight for first place. This was a game from which the winner might jump right into the nation’s top 25.

Well, the winner was UCLA, as usual, 96-87.

And the visiting fans enjoyed it, rubbing it in, by chanting: “Just like football! Just like football!”

They were pleased, because J.R. Henderson and Kris Johnson--neither of whom were in the starting lineup--scored 43 points between them.

And they were relieved, because even when USC was 18 points down in the second half, the Trojans kept charging, cutting UCLA’s lead to five.

It was a good game to win, because this one would have rattled the Bruins, badly.

Had they lost it, they would have gone home muttering about blowing an 18-point advantage, about losing to their archrivals, about Henderson’s disagreement with Coach Steve Lavin that made him miss the opening tip-off, and about traveling to Louisville not believing in themselves.

Instead, UCLA is riding a four-game winning streak, is sitting pretty at the top of the Pac-10 and is feeling pumped up about being on the verge of returning to the nation’s top 25.

Even the thing with Henderson blew over, thanks to this victory.

He and the coach had not seen eye-to-eye at Wednesday’s practice. For the third time this season, Henderson had to be disciplined by Lavin, who has a hard enough time trying to run this team in Jim Harrick’s wake without his players openly defying him.

Lavin was glad he could let the matter slide after this victory. He said, “I thought J.R. responded in such a positive way. I tell these guys, it’s how you respond that determines whether you’re going to play, not what you do.

“He’s mature. We had a good talk. That’s what going to college is all about, getting an education.”

Player and coach met for about an hour, clearing the air.

“I told him what I thought, and then I hugged him,” Lavin said.

A night later, Henderson found himself a spectator, along with 12,843 at the Sports Arena, until the 14:42 mark of the first half. Without him, UCLA had one field goal. The Bruins scored five points in the game’s first 7:47, and looked as though they were going to let the Trojans take them apart, same way Stanford did.

But in came Henderson, who possibly learned a lesson.

The lesson being . . . nobody likes the bench.

Asked what he was thinking, sitting there, the veteran from UCLA’s 1995 NCAA championship team responded, “That I got a lot of time to make up for.”

That’s the kind of response Lavin wanted.

“I was pumped up. I felt like I could score at will,” said Henderson, who made nine of 10 shots.

“What happened [between the coach and him] was nothing serious. It was just settling our differences. He talked to me about being more coachable. There’s definitely no problem whatsoever between me and him. We did what you do when you have differences. You settle them.”

Henderson and Johnson, in particular, have to watch their step, from now until the rest of the season.

Each was disciplined by Lavin twice before this, for minor team-related infractions . . . being late, and such. Nothing serious, but important if Lavin is to maintain any sense of order.

There’s no “third strike” law, but Henderson is pushing it. Everyone thinks of J.R. as an upstanding guy, but it is time for him to be a leader, day in, day out. After all, Lavin could have easily suspended him for one game, not for a few minutes.

And had Henderson missed this game, USC would have won it.