Lavin Demotes McCoy

BURLINGAME, Calif. — He dunks, he gets technical fouls, he misses free throws, he yells at his coach.

And now, after a woeful game and a sideline outburst, the abundantly talented, erratic 6-foot-9 1/2 center is a backup, warily and possibly only temporarily.

Sophomore Jelani McCoy, the epitome of UCLA’s sophomoric soul, is out of the starting lineup for today’s game at the Cow Palace against California, and senior guard Cameron Dollar is back in, interim Coach Steve Lavin said Friday.

McCoy, who had been kept out of the starting lineup twice this season for disciplinary reasons, had a showy disagreement with Lavin on the bench during the first half of Thursday’s record-setting 109-61 loss at Stanford, then sat out the first 6:30 of the second half.

He finished with four points and two rebounds in 13 minutes, as the Bruins were outrebounded, 45-26.

“We just had a conversation, a player-coach conversation,” McCoy said Friday of his on-court argument with Lavin. “That’s all I can say.”

Was that why McCoy didn’t start the second half?

“You guys are pretty smart; you can answer that,” McCoy said. “I understood. It was Coach’s decision. I can’t check myself into the game, so I’m not worried. I’m not upset.

“I’m just concentrating on playing Cal. I’m going to get into the game, it’s not like I’m not going to play at all, so I’m not worried about it.”

Lavin said he was making the move because Dollar deserved more time and because he thought going smaller might get Kris Johnson and Toby Bailey more and better shots, not because he wanted to punish McCoy for the outburst.

“[The incident] was not even worth really commenting about in the big scheme of things,” Lavin said Friday. “It wasn’t even a major issue.”

With UCLA in a relatively pressure-packed situation--bounce back from the epic defeat to play Cal today, then the Arizona schools in Westwood next weekend--McCoy has been struggling. He’s been having trouble getting shots (he has taken only 15 in three conference games) and, when he’s fouled, he has made only 28% of his free throws, three of his last 14.

“[The benching] is not a negative thing,” Lavin said, comparing it to his decision five games ago to move Johnson into the lineup and Dollar out for strategic reasons. “I told [McCoy] his minutes won’t diminish, his field-goal attempts won’t diminish. I still consider him a starter. He could start the second half, he could start the Arizona weekend or he may not.

“When you lose by 48, you’ve got to look at different combinations and different ways to jump-start your team to try to get them off to a good start, especially in a critical conference game.”

Though he has shown flashes of the power and shot-blocking prowess he displayed in his freshman season, McCoy, if anything, has been less consistent this year, and his rebounds are down from 6.9 a game last season to 5.9.

He has made 77.9% of his field-goal attempts--which ranks him among the best in the nation--but more than half of his 53 field goals have been dunks or layups. And McCoy has found it difficult against physical teams that push him away from the basket on offense and go through him for offensive rebounds.

Stanford center Tim Young grabbed 10 rebounds and scored 10 points in the first half, dominating the inside with only token opposition.

“We just need to concentrate on coming out and playing hard from the get-go and being more physical and winning the war on the boards,” McCoy said. “Yeah, I was disappointed in myself a little bit. But the Stanford game is over with, we can’t go back and replay it, we don’t have that chance.

“We still have a lot of games to go, and I’m not worried about my game at all, considering the circumstances. A lot of teams are doubling and tripling down on the post, and that’s going to happen to every player every once in a while.”

Dollar had a short talk with McCoy on the court after Friday’s workout at Skyline College and said he thinks the younger players are learning hard lessons this season.

“I think when we get hit early it’s a distraction to us, where we’re focusing on what just happened instead of, what we are going to do now?” Dollar said.

“There’s no reason for you to react to a ref’s call, for you and the coach to get into it for something he’s trying to tell you. . . . Teams know that we’re going to be so focused on other things, they can just sneak up on us and just play.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Real McCoy?

Comparing Jelani McCoy’s statistics:

1995-96

Games Started: 31/31

FG%: 67.6

FT%: 43.5

Reb. Avg.: 6.9

Blocks/Avg.: 102/3.3

Scoring Avg.: 10.2

*

1996-97

Games Started: 9/11

FG%: 77.9

FT%: 28.2

Reb. Avg.: 5.9

Blocks/Avg.: 24/2.18

Scoring Avg.: 10.8

McCoy in three conference games this season: three for 14 from free-throw line; five rebounds a game, 7.6 points, one block.