LOS ANGELES >> They did more than just lose three times to USC last season, something that hadn’t happened since 1942.
They did more than just lose each game by a progressively more depressing margin — 14 and then 19 and then 24 points.
They did more than just lose to the Trojans as their last gasp of a lost year, falling hard, 95-71, in the Pac-12 tournament.
The UCLA Bruins did more than just all that, which is another way of saying they did less than just all that.
Indeed, as bad as the Bruins were last year against the Trojans — and, when the narrative goes back to World War II times, they were historically dreadful — they were even worse upon closer examination.
In the final two games between the rivals, UCLA never had as much as a single lead. Not even 1-0, 2-0, 2-1. Nothing. Zero.
In the first meeting, the Bruins led for fewer than two minutes total — 1:47, to be exact.
In other words, UCLA was on top for only 1.5 percent of the 120 minutes these teams spent together on the same court.
Folks, that isn’t dominance; that’s demolition, the Bruins able to hang with the Trojans only until the conclusion of pregame layup lines.
Pure and absolute demolition, to be real. And versus the school against which such a pancaking is most flattening of all. This was, figuratively speaking, college basketball’s version of Deflategate.
Remember USC’s 50-0 victory over UCLA in football in 2011? Losing three straight basketball games so decisively also was that, tortuously spread out, each one a more embarrassing rerun of the rout that came before.
As the teams met for the first time this season, Wednesday night at the Galen Center, all that negativity is what rested on the shoulders of a Bruins program that has spent the past 10 weeks emphatically distancing itself from a disastrous 2015-16.
Not that all the players involved now in this rivalry can personally speak to what all that USC-themed preeminence felt like.
Four Trojans transferred after last season and two declared for the NBA draft. USC also continues to be without sophomore Bennie Boatwright, who is sidelined because of a sprained MCL.
The Bruins, meanwhile, still have Bryce Alford, Isaac Hamilton and Thomas Welsh, among other returnees. But UCLA’s starting lineup also includes freshmen Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf.
Most of the current mock NBA drafts have Ball going among the top three picks in June, even though he isn’t a player whose scoring or shooting will inspire a second look, never mind genuine awe.
Instead, his draft status is a testament to his ability to do something that many players in the NBA right now can’t do: make their teammates better.
Ball certainly has lifted the Bruins as a group and as individuals, his tireless commitment to drawing attention opening space for others to showcase the things that they do best and often at blurring speeds.
“That’s our game,” guard Aaron Holiday said. “That’s what we do, so we’re going to continue to do it.”
USC forward Chimezie Metu this week called Ball “the difference-maker,” which, although accurate and respectful, is one of the more tame recent descriptions of the young point guard.
Just a season after his Bruins were, en masse, routinely careening over the edge, coach Steve Alford keeps talking about Ball descending, too, but in the best of ways.
“He’s one of the most special players I’ve ever watched playing the game downhill,” Alford said. “He does it as fast as I’ve ever seen a player do it and still make incredible plays, incredible decisions.”
On Wednesday, Ball was going to have to do it in front of a packed and unhinged enemy crowd, the Trojans becoming a more popular draw themselves.
When these teams played here most recently — on Feb. 4, 2016 — the Galen Center was sold out for the first time in five years.
The Trojans scored the game’s first nine points, and UCLA never closed the gap to fewer than six in the second half. The final: 80-61, USC.
Of the Trojans’ top four scorers that night, only Elijah Stewart was scheduled to play this time.
But Jordan McLaughlin is still around, the nifty guard finishing with 10 assists, nine points and five steals a year ago, on a night when the Trojans won their 14th game in a row at home.
“Their energy helped our energy,” McLaughlin said of the crowd afterward. “That’s always a plus.”
The Trojans were looking for a similar boost Wednesday, a boost to match the extra kick with which the Bruins figured to be playing, especially coming off a home loss Saturday to Arizona.
Of course, as the recent history of this rivalry suggests, USC has had a way of jumping up early and playing well from ahead.
