Bruins Back to Old Ways

No matter the recent crises and twists of fate, for at least one more fast and fluid Pacific 10 Conference night, this was still a league UCLA owns.

Thursday, the two-time defending conference champion Bruins were unconscious in conference all over again:

Efficient offense, dominant rebounding, dependable shooting and, to make everything fit right, a very unathletic and very tired Washington State opponent added up to a blistering 84-56 Bruin victory before 8,350 at Pauley Pavilion to open Pac-10 play.

“Me and Jelani [McCoy] were talking on the bench at the end telling each other that this is the way it’s supposed to be for us, we’re supposed to be blowing people out,” said UCLA forward J.R. Henderson, who was one of four Bruins in double figures, scoring 14 points--12 in UCLA’s trend-setting first half.

“And it just came natural, it’s the way we’re supposed to play.”

Can the Bruins, after so many strange and chaotic moments this season, sustain it?

“We have a lot of confidence that as long as we keep in mind it’s one game at a time, one win at a time, we can keep it going,” Henderson said. “We can’t start thinking we’re all fantastic after blowing out Washington State.”

After a week of what interim Coach Steve Lavin called the best, most demanding practices of his tenure, the Bruins moved past their preconference bumbles and oopsies, made full use of their physical advantages in a precise first half, then roared away in the second half.

And in case it seems that UCLA (6-3, 1-0) saves its best for the Pac-10--and worst for everybody else--here’s a telling number: Since the beginning of last season, the Bruins are 17-2 in league play, and 12-9 out of it.

“We know our nonconference record is kind of blemished right now, and we’re kind of taking the regular season as a whole new start for us,” said guard Toby Bailey, who had another across-the-board stat line: seven rebounds, six assists, seven points and only two turnovers.

“And something we take pride in is we’ve won the conference the last two years, and we want to do it again.”

Said Henderson: “It’s not that the nonconference games don’t matter, but we really want to win our conference games. We just seem to be more focused and play harder.”

Washington State lost its 40th consecutive game at UCLA, and its 32nd straight inside Pauley Pavilion. Washington State is the only Pac-10 team that hasn’t won at Pauley.

The Cougars (8-5), coming off a taxing three-game Hawaii swing, were outmatched from the outset, dropping behind, 7-0, and only making token runs over the next several minutes.

In the best half of the Bruins’ season, UCLA made 20 of its 31 field-goal attempts (64.5%), had 12 assists, committed only six turnovers, outrebounded the Cougars, 21-9, and outscored Washington State, 44-27.

UCLA unofficially cemented the blowout with consecutive towering alley-oop hookups from Cameron Dollar to Charles O’Bannon, who had a game-high 15 points, and a four-point play by Brandon Loyd to make the score 73-46 with 5:38 left to play.

Overall, against a Washington State defense that had been holding opponents to 62.7 points a game and a 35.5% shooting percentage, UCLA shot 60.7% (34 for 56) and outrebounded the Cougars, 39-23.

McCoy, who made six of his eight shots, led the Bruins with eight rebounds--no Cougar had more than four.

“We were never in the game from possession No. 1,” said Cougar Coach Kevin Eastman, lamenting his team’s worst loss in 177 games, dating to a 31-point loss at Stanford in 1991. “I’m so sick, I hope the guys feel like I do. It’s hard to be in public right now.”

With the Bruin pressure and zone defense stifling Washington State’s inside game--leading scorer Carlos Daniel made only one of five shots in the first half, and five of 10 overall--UCLA held the Cougars to 39.3% shooting from the field.

On offense, the Bruins, thanks also to Washington State’s lack of defensive passion, passed the ball easily into the post and back out.

“It was just a great selfless kind of game,” Lavin said. “Tonight, we seemed to click on all cylinders.”

Lavin said that after the week of practices, he had an inkling his team would come out with precision.

“They were the most intense, focused, hungry group of guys for the last five or six days that I had seen,” Lavin said. “We’re beginning to see the fruits of hard labor pay off.”

*

* TROJANS WIN

With forward Rodrick Rhodes playing the point, USC beats Washington, 77-58. C4