Next 5 Days Will Decide Whether Bruins Will Be Contender in Pac-10 Race

UCLA’s Bruins, having just beaten their first winning team, even if it was only Washington State, and produced their first winning streak, even if it is just two games, are thinking heady thoughts about the Pacific 10 race. Tonight at 7 against Arizona State, they’ll start to find out what’s possible.

Saturday, they will play at Arizona. Monday night, they will play host to Washington. By the end of these five days in January, the Bruins will know just what it is, between first place and seventh, that they’re fighting for.

Arizona State has a 7-6 record overall and is 2-1 in the Pac-10. Arizona is 11-4 and 2-1. UCLA (5-6, 2-1) hasn’t won a road game yet.

Washington, the conference favorite, is 11-4 and 2-1, and fields one of those huge front lines UCLA hasn’t been able to handle.

A first- or second-place UCLA finish would be stunning, but who’s to say it’s unthinkable? The Bruins played well at Corvallis against first-place Oregon State, which then went to Seattle and upset the Huskies.

A third-place finish would be an upset and carries the possibility of invitation into the expanded 64-team NCAA tournament. Fourth place would be a big surprise. After the Bruins’ December, fifth wasn’t the odds-on pick, either.

“The conference is going to be a big scramble,” UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard said at his Tuesday breakfast. “I don’t think anybody is going to run away with it. . . . I’d say five losses could win it. . . .

“We lost a game at Oregon State on mental mistakes. . . . In Corvallis, down 12 and we come back to one and their crowd went dead. If we’d gotten the lead in that ballgame, I think we’d have won it. I’m not sure we were ready to win a game like that. I don’t know if our players really believed we could win it. . . .

“We need a win on the road. It’s almost getting to be that if you win all your home games and split on the road, you’ll be right there.”

The Sun Devils, coached by what Hazzard refers to as “Weinhauer and those two Bruins”--Bob Weinhauer and assistants Henry Bibby and Steve Patterson--were thought to be young and coming, though a season or two away. They were still expected to finish higher than UCLA, which was considered young and going.

The Sun Devils then went a disappointing 5-5. They opened conference play at home by blowing a six-point lead in the last minute and lost to Arizona, 61-60, on Eddie Smith’s three-point play at the buzzer. Then they swept their games last week at Cal and Stanford.

ASU is led by freshman Chris Sandle, a 6-foot, 7-inch, 205-pound freshman forward from Long Beach Poly. Hazzard will let his point guard, Nigel Miguel, who held Washington State forward Joe Wallace to four baskets in 18 shots, try another forward.

Bruin Notes You could also put this down as a skirmish in the Tom Lewis stakes. The forward from Mater Dei is being hotly recruited by UCLA and Arizona State. . . . Arizona State has junior college transfer Jon Taylor (6-10, 235), Jim Deines (6-9, 195) and Chris Sandle (6-7, 205) across the front line but is being outrebounded by nearly two a game. . . . Sandle’s numbers: 12.9 points a game, high on the team, in an average of 27.5 minutes (fourth-high), plus 5.6 rebounds (second). . . . Guard Bobby Thompson, who played alongside Corey Gaines at St. Bernard’s and under Walt Hazzard in youth ball, is Arizona State’s third-leading scorer at 12.1. . . . Hazzard, asked about the Huskies’ problems at guard: “Their backcourt is suspect. I was watching ESPN last night and Marv Harshman said right on the air he didn’t have any guards. If they don’t have any guards, we’re going to go right at them.” . . . Hazzard, asked to choose the conference’s top player: “(Detlef) Schrempf is a great player, but I love A. C. Green. He does whatever it takes for his team to win. He’s unselfish. To me, he’s an All-American.” . . . Add prospects who have visited UCLA: Carl Pitts, a 6-8, 240-pound center at Trade Tech who is an ex-Marine, and Trevor Wilson, a Cleveland High junior.