The duct tape is fraying, the glue cracking, the string unraveling.
Everything that held UCLA together through the loss of its best player and a flurry of close finishes in which the Bruins consistently found a way to prevail is cracking at its foundation.
Three losses in four games have knocked UCLA out of first place in the Pac-12 Conference. Judging by the way the Bruins played Thursday against Washington State, an opponent that usually portrays the role of the Washington Generals to their Harlem Globetrotters, things may not have bottomed out.