UCLA sophomore guard Ryan Walcott turned to the Allen Fieldhouse fans and grinned, cupping his ears during Saturday’s pregame warmups and challenging the already raucous Jayhawk crowd to cheer even louder.

It was a boast he and his Bruin teammates couldn’t back up.

“We can beat them still. I don’t think they are better than us,” the Arizona native bragged after the Bruins’ 87-70 setback at Allen Fieldhouse.

Maybe on another afternoon, but not Saturday.

Especially not after a slow start, which Walcott and other UCLA teammates said stemmed from the Bruins’ mistakes, not the din of the KU faithful.

But UCLA coach Steve Lavin wasn’t so quick to rule out the fieldhouse’s role in the Bruins’ defeat in his 200th career game.

“I think it’s a combination,” said Lavin, whose 2-4 team is off to a worse start than any of his six previous Bruin squads. “Kansas plays a strong pressure defense, so they can disrupt your offensive rhythm or flow. And playing on the road, playing in a hostile environment like Allen Fieldhouse …

“Then, I think we were careless with the ball some and we took some risky shots that fed into their transition basketball. Before you know it, the game’s a runaway.”

That it was — but only for the first half.

The Bruins misfired on all five of their shots in the opening five minutes. When Andre Patterson finally connected on a spinning jumper, UCLA was down 9-2.

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It didn’t get much better for the Bruins, either, as Kansas went on an 18-0 run to the crowd’s satisfaction.

But the Bruins said they weren’t startled by the noise, even though the Fieldhouse holds nearly 3,500 more fans than UCLA’s home court, Pauley Pavilion — the historic arena where only 5,736 people watched the Bruins in an embarrassing loss to Northern Arizona last week.

“The crowd didn’t bother us at all,” Patterson insisted.

Still, the tradition-rich Bruins were down 26 points with 1:04 left in the first half after shooting just 33.3 percent from the field. Standout Jason Kapono, who was averaging 17.4 points a game coming into Saturday, had scored just one bucket on 1-of-6 shooting in the first 20 minutes.

The Bruins didn’t buckle, though.

UCLA, which Lavin said finally settled into its offense in the second half, cut the Jayhawks’ lead to 11 behind a half-court press, Kapono’s offensive rebounding and 21 points from sophomore guard Dijon Thompson.

A rebound putback by Patterson, who scored 12 points, cut UCLA’s deficit to 75-63 with 4:09 left.

“Our kids did a good job of fighting back,” Lavin said. “But we were never able to get over the hump and get it into single digits.”

Walcott, who was loudly booed by the KU fans during the game’s final seconds, admitted the fieldhouse was one of the toughest places he has played.

“It’s up there,” he said. “It’s not the toughest, though.”