Fire the coach.
Fire him for his role in the most embarrassing defeat UCLA's basketball team has suffered in many years.Fire him for not having his team prepared before its shocking 112-102 loss to Tulsa in a first-round NCAA Tournament game here Friday, and for his inability to forestall the debacle as it was developing.
Fire him for letting an extremely talented group of players go down in flames in this manner.
Fire him for one game? You bet. And fire him, too, for not understanding the magnitude of the disaster that one game represented.
One of the worst things about UCLA's astonishing demise against Tulsa was Harrick's inability to distinguish it from other tough tournament defeats his teams have suffered - its overtime loss to Michigan last year, say.
"They all hurt," Harrick said. "Does one hurt more than another one? I don't think so."
But this one should hurt more because it was not just another loss, it was a total coming apart at the seams. It was the abject, inarguable proof of the failure of the present course.
This was not Cal losing a close game to Wisconsin-Green Bay because Jason Kidd and Lamond Murray had a bad day. Rather, it was the basketball equivalent of USC's loss to Fresno State that cost Larry Smith his job as football coach.
And it was a signal to UCLA's alumni and fans to turn up the heat and not take no for an answer. Chancellor Charles Young can expect his phone to be ringing off the hook after this one. And considering athletic director Peter Dalis' less than resounding support, it might take one of the biggest upsets of the year for Harrick to save his job.
There is no understating just how bad UCLA, which was the No. 1 team in the country less than two months ago, looked against Tulsa. There is no soft-pedaling how helpless the Bruins appeared against a team that was several inches shorter man for man, that had lost to Northern Iowa 12 days ago and that was just happy to be here.
The missed shots, the dreadful passes, the foolish fouls, the inability to cope with Tulsa's speed or its defensive pressure asserted itself time and again as UCLA fell behind by 29 points in the first half. It was a ragged and frightened performance that had to be seen to be believed.
No, I take that back. I saw it and I still don't believe it. And I wasn't the only one.
"It wasn't a bad dream, it was a nightmare," Harrick said.
As for Tulsa's players, they acted at first as if they couldn't comprehend what was taking place, either. But as they raced over, under, around and through the Bruins to leads of 10-0, 21-12, 29-15 and 42-17, they began to get the message.
"Is this all you've got?" you could almost hear them saying to themselves. "Well, get out of our way then."
The fact that Tulsa is only a few hours from here can't be used as an excuse, either. There couldn't have been more than a few hundred students who made the trip ("We've got midterms," one band member said half-apologetically) and the Myriad Convention Center was hardly ringing with cheers.
But as the game wore on and the nature of the upset became apparent, everybody in the place except a few UCLA fans was rooting for Tulsa. And why not? At least, it was out there having a good time while UCLA had the aspect of an ox that was being hit over the head.
"They came out the way we were supposed to," said freshman forward Charles O'Bannon. "It was like there was a lid on our basket and their basket was a vacuum cleaner. Everything around it was going in."
"We were stagnant," said UCLA guard Shon Tarver, "and whenever we become stagnant, people really capitalize. We become the hunted."
The players said they expected Harrick to bear the brunt of the fallout from this one and seemed prepared to rally behind him.
"They're going to continue to get on him," O'Bannon said, "but we're playing, not him. It's our fault we didn't come through."
And Harrick himself alluded to what is coming when he said, "I think the players always win the game and the coach always loses it."
It is too late for any of that now, though, too late for Harrick to point out he has taken the Bruins to the NCAA Tournament six straight times, to say anything can happen during March madness, to claim it is only a few sports talk-show hosts and their listeners who are out to get him.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Harrick said when asked what he thinks his critics will say about him now. "Do you listen to the radio? I don't read it in the paper."
He does now.