Indianapolis ? John Wooden’s teams scored 100 points or more 88 times.

That could be the UCLA you know – the hook shots of Lew Alcindor (before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), the bank shots of Bill Walton, the silky-smooth jump shots of Keith Wilkes (later Jamaal Wilkes), the long left-handed ones of Gail Goodrich, the swoops to the hoop of Marques Johnson.

Or maybe that’s too old school for you. You could be better acquainted with the UCLA basketball of a later era -t he let-it-fly technique of Reggie Miller, the score-then-score-some-more methods of Don MacLean and Tracy Murray, the razzle-dazzle of Baron Davis.

UCLA has mass-produced 11 national championships, as well as some of the greatest basket-makers the collegiate game has ever known.

Ah, but this UCLA, the one that will go for a 12th title tonight when it faces Florida, could be all but unrecognizable to you.

Because as implausible as it seems that a basketball program once masterminded by Wooden, the almost mythic “Wizard of Westwood,” could go more than 30 years with a single NCAA championship (in 1995), it is equally difficult to accept a UCLA team that wipes up the hardwood with opponents with its defense.

A team that holds foes to point totals in the 40s and low 50s. A team that doesn’t care what or whom you throw at it – a gunner like Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison or a banger like LSU’s Glen “Big Baby” Davis, a mister outside or a mister inside, whatever you’ve got, bring it on.

And if the Bruins don’t fill up a net with all that many points themselves, who cares?

“This team,” a proud alumnus, Abdul-Jabbar, said after Saturday night’s remarkably one-sided UCLA victory over LSU, “has its own way of getting things done.”

The players get this.

A few of them resent the idea that defensive basketball is dull, particularly after hearing cracks on TV that this year’s tournament is the Final Bore.

“We’re definitely in a different era,” UCLA sophomore forward Arron Afflalo said Sunday. “All of our fans and supporters, they enjoy winning more than they do just ‘Showtime.’ “

“Basically,” senior teammate Cedric Bozeman chimed in, “it’s substance over style.”

Points taken.

Yet it still seems inside-out, somehow, like a New York Yankees team that wants to beat you with a bunt, or a Chicago Bears team that amazes you with one long touchdown pass after another. UCLA is no more known for its basketball defense than Indiana is known for its beaches.

“North Carolina and Illinois last year were both great defensive teams,” Farmar says. “Every team that wins a national title is a good defensive team. It’s just different for us because we don’t have lottery picks like North Carolina did. They had five or six NBA guys on that team and we don’t. So I guess people assume other teams have a lot more talent than we do.”

Not a lot of talent but we find a way to win? You don’t hear that every day out of UCLA.