THE SEASON FROM YOU KNOW WHERE.

Byline: BILLY WITZ College Basketball 

When USC, the football school known elsewhere as Southern Cal, rode into hoops-centric Philadelphia two years ago without its white horse and knocked Kentucky out of the NCAA Tournament and nearly punched Duke's ticket as well, the message to those back East was clear:

In your face, fellas!.

After years of hearing how soft the basketball was out Left, the Trojans' hard-nosed style - and the fact that three Pacific-10 Conference teams were in the Elite Eight - earned some long-awaited acknowledgment that West Coast basketball was back.

Nowhere was March Madness more gripping than in L.A.

In addition to the Trojans' run, Cal State Northridge advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time, Pepperdine ran Bobby Knight's last Indiana team off the court and UCLA was perched in its usual Sweet 16 spot.

Last season, a record six teams from the Pac-10 were in the Big Dance as were five teams from Southern California.

However, if the past two years put the West Coast back on the map, this season has the cartographers back at work again.

That earthquake that's supposed to drop Southern California into the sea? In the basketball world - at least until Cal wins on the road - the West Coast might as well begin and end with Arizona.

So much for the renaissance.

In less than two months, the Pac-10 Tournament will be coming to Staples Center and the NCAA West Regional finals will take place at the Pond.

Which means, finally, some good basketball will be coming to Los Angeles - or so we can hope.

If there's a basketball corollary to the trickle-down theory of economics, the case study is right here. The bad brand of basketball the Lakers and Clippers began playing this season has trickled down, down and down to the local universities, which have taken it upon themselves to plumb subterranean depths.

UCLA, in the midst of its worst season since the Truman administration, is garnering most of the attention but the Bruins have plenty of company.

Of the eight Division I schools in the Southland, only UC Irvine has a winning record overall and in its conference, the Big West.

Unless any of them wins their postseason tournament - and UC Irvine, which has never done it, is the only one with a strong shot - L.A. will be without a team in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1984. You have to go back to 1966 to find a year when no team from Southern California was in the tournament.

For that matter, there might not even be a local team in the NIT this year.

Here's how bad it's been:

UCLA (4-11, 2-5): The Bruins' biggest game of the season thus far looks to be Saturday night against Oregon State. At stake: eighth place and the final spot in the Pac-10 tournament.

USC (7-8, 3-4): The Trojans were pounded by UC Santa Barbara and needed a big game from a football player, Gregg Guenther, to beat Arizona State. Wonder whether Henry Bibby knows Carson Palmer was a pretty fair hoops player in high school?

Cal State Northridge (9-8, 3-4): The Matadors once went 29 days between victories this season - or as long as coach Bobby Braswell sometimes goes between smiling.

Pepperdine (10-7, 2-2): The Waves have been disappearing faster than the 12 Little Indians. Three starters - Will Kimble, Glen McGowan and Devin Montgomery - are gone for the year, crippling a promising season.

Loyola Marymount (7-13, 1-4): The Lions haven't won more than 11 games since 1996. One of this year's losses was to Point Loma - the NAIA school, not the sportfishing outfit.

UC Irvine (12-5, 5-2): The Anteaters might be the best in the Big West, but when they played two marquee games - against Stanford and Oklahoma- they lost by a combined 49 points.

Cal State Fullerton (5-12): The Titans did something UCLA did: lost both their exhibition games, including one to Occidental College.

Long Beach State (2-14): Poor first-year coach Larry Reynolds, who's having to clean up Wayne Morgan's mess. The 49ers will do well to match the school's low of four victories.

It's hard to say why the basketball is down across the board. One common denominator is the quality of point guards. Gone are experienced hands like UCLA's Earl Watson, USC's Brandon Granville, Northridge's Markus Carr, UCI's Jerry Green and the injured Montgomery at Pepperdine.

There aren't many good big men, either. Gone are UCLA's Dan Gadzuric and Matt Barnes, USC's Sam Clancy, Pepperdine's McGowan and even Fullerton's Pape Sow, who was kicked off the team.

This has not been lost on L.A. fans, who if nothing else are the first ones to spot a trend. They're staying away from Pauley Pavilion in droves and no longer have a reason to go to the Sports Arena. Even UCI, in its home game against Big West rival Utah State, played to a half-empty Bren Center.

``It's hard to be a college basketball program in L.A.,'' said UCLA guard Jon Crispin. ``This is L.A., Hollywood - it's not a college town. If you're not playing well, nobody follows you. Look at SC in football. Nobody went to their games until they took off. In basketball, they get 3,000 people at their games.''

This season, perhaps, the Trojans, the Bruins and everyone else are getting the crowds they deserve.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 5 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 4 -- color) Clockwise from top right: Steve Lavin, UCLA; Henry Bibby, USC; Bobby Braswell, CSUN; Paul Westphal, Pepperdine.

Box:

(1) A RANK YEAR FOR MEN'S TEAMS

(2) FAST BREAK

(3) UCLA vs. OREGON

- Billy Witz

(4) CONFERENCE STANDINGS

(5) LEADERS