The sad part for anyone who cares even the smallest bit about UCLA basketball wasn’t Kansas 87, Bruins 70.

There was actually a touch of honor in that final score of Saturday’s game at Allen Fieldhouse, a reflection of continued effort despite an apparent lost cause.

No, the sad part came with 11 minutes left in the first half and the Bruins behind by 14-6, because it was already obvious that this was over. Everything the Bruins had done to that point, in this game and in this season, told you they weren’t going to win.

Because the Bruins have no direction. And if they don’t know where they’re going, how are they going to get there?

What’s their offensive philosophy? They have no idea.

Steve Lavin said the plan for this game was to take advantage of Kansas’ aggressive denial all over the court by making backdoor cuts. But it’s not fair to expect the Bruins to turn into Princeton overnight. They wound up doing the exact opposite: throwing risky lateral passes around the perimeter that the Jayhawks intercepted and turned into fastbreaks the other way. That’s why Kansas led, 48-25, at halftime.

The Bruins don’t have a low-post threat and they aren’t setting up their top perimeter shooter, Jason Kapono. If Kapono can’t create good shots for himself, it’s up to the guys with the clipboards to free him. But at this point it’s hard to tell who is more confused about Jason Kapono’s role in the offense — Lavin or Kapono.

The only good thing to say about the UCLA team was that the Bruins did play hard all the way through. Playing hard will usually get you something, and in this case it was an 11-3 run in the second half that trimmed Kansas’ one-time 25-point lead down to 11 with three minutes to play.

For a little while it was UCLA forcing quick shots, causing turnovers and creating transition opportunities. The Bruins even had the ball with a chance to cut the lead to single digits.

But what good would that have done? Then they would have been locked in a battle of execution, possession for possession, and you know how that would have turned out.

What made the Kansas-UCLA matchup so enticing in theory was that it involved schools with rich basketball tradition, bringing together the ancestral homes of Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Naismith and John Wooden.

The present looked pretty lopsided. Kansas coach Roy Williams vs. Lavin isn’t even debatable, and it showed in Saturday’s game.

Another area in which Kansas holds the edge: home-court advantage. Allen Fieldhouse, with its windows up on the walls and cozy size, is my favorite venue in college basketball. It has all the great atmosphere of Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, with none of the pretentiousness.

Pauley Pavilion still is home to those 11 championship banners, but lately the crowds haven’t even been half as large as the 16,300 who packed Allen on Saturday.

There’s not much for Lavin to say to the sharks right now. They’re in feeding-frenzy mode after tasting Bob Toledo’s blood, and they’re jumping out of the water with excitement over Dan Guerrero’s selection of Karl Dorrell.