KEVIN KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Sophomore Channing Frye is surrounded by UCLA's Jason Kapona, Ray Young and T.J. Cummings. Young hit a 3-pointer to send last night's game into over time as the eighth-seeded Bruins upset the No. 1 Wildcats 96-89 last night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES ÷ A lot has been said about how the Wildcats don't care too much about the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament.

Since Arizona lost to UCLA in overtime yesterday afternoon, 96-89, many people around the Staples Center blamed the loss purely on motivation, or lack thereof.

For example, the team arrived in Los Angeles at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, making them the only team to not practice in the arena that day.

It's also a known fact that UA head coach Lute Olson can't stand having to play an extra set of tournament games.

Plus Arizona has already won the conference title, is pretty much guaranteed the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and has been picked as one of the two favorites to win it all.

But come on, how can anyone really believe that the Wildcats didn't want to win the conference tournament?

It comes down to a little thing called heart. Once these UA players stepped onto the Staples Center floor yesterday, all those guarantees of further glory were thrown out the window.

Once the game starts, a basketball player is all about the score board.

"We never come into something that we don't want to win," Olson said.

Jason Gardner has battled wire to wire with UCLA's Jason Kapono for four years. It doesn't take much realize Gardner would have liked to end Kapono's career personally.

What about Los Angeles native Hassan Adams?

Adams has been watching UCLA basketball his whole life. Nothing would have been sweeter than to knock the Bruins out of the tournament and put an exclamation on their nightmare of a season.

Plus, wouldn't it have been nice for UA players to say that they were the last team that Steve Lavin ever faced as the head coach of the Bruins?

Arizona players were as tired as they were shocked after the game in the locker room. Each player had his head down and some players didn't even want to address the media after the game, which is not typical of the Wildcat players.

They took this loss hard, there is no doubt about how much they cared about the outcome.

Like the tournament or not, losing to UCLA, possibly Arizona's biggest rival, in the regular season, postseason, or even in a pick-up game, hurts. A lot.

Gardner took it the hardest.

"I take most of the blame for the loss," said Gardner of his 2-for-20 shooting game and 0-of-12 performance from behind the arc. "I don't know what is. A lot of shots were short, a lot of shots were long."

But the blame can't all be put on Gardner.

Sure, the Wildcats beat the Bruins by 71 points in their first two meetings this season, but UA got a different UCLA team. It was a team that had won three of four games, one that was playing for their coach's career and also its seniors.

Lavin said before the game that if UCLA was going to win, it was going to have to play a near-perfect game. Kapono said the Bruins were going to shock the world.

Both things happened.

The Bruins played their most complete game of the season and got Arizona on a night where nothing other than great performances by Rick Anderson and Channing Frye went right.

"We had nothing to lose," Andre Patterson said. "Nobody gave us a shot."

Except for the Bruin players.

It came down to that heart once again. Yes, Arizona did care but definitely not as much as UCLA.

That was the difference.

For Arizona there will be another game, most likely next Thursday in Salt Lake City. Nobody thought UCLA would have another game ÷ except the Bruins.