UCLA Faces a Big Task in Huskies : Welp, Schrempf, Fortier Lead Washington Into Pauley

Newly demoted to a fourth-place tie in the Pacific 10, UCLA’s Bruins now must face Washington’s huge Huskies tonight at 7:30 in Pauley Pavilion. As they said in “Up the Down Staircase,” take it as an opportunity.

The Huskies, big preseason conference favorites, are now 4-1, tied for second with USC, having been surprised in Seattle by Oregon State. The one conference team with what you would call major-power size, Washington starts a front line of 7-0 Chris Welp, 6-9 Paul Fortier and 6-9 1/2 Detlef Schrempf.

The Bruins go 6-11, 6-8 and 6-6, 173 pounds across the front line and had all kinds of early season trouble against big lineups at DePaul, Memphis State, etc. Since, however, UCLA has picked up on the boards. The 6-11 center, Brad Wright, now trails only Oregon State’s A.C. Green among conference rebounders. The 173-pound Reggie Miller has averaged five rebounds over his last five games.

Washington has had its own problems, mostly in the backcourt. Last season’s point guard, Alvin Vaughn, is gone. So is this season’s, Gary Gardner, now academically ineligible. Coach Marv Harshman is trying to get by with two off-guards, Shag Williams and Clay Damon, but mostly by letting Schrempf run the show as much as possible.

The way to play teams with guard problems is to press them, though the Bruin press hasn’t bothered anyone all season. The rest of the UCLA defense has been fine, though.

Since the start of the Pacific 10 season, when they could begin matching up against people their own size and experience, the Bruins have started playing the kind of tough man-to-man defense Coach Walt Hazzard had been advocating.

Going into the Arizona trip, they had held conference opponents to 37.1% from the floor, best in the Pacific 10. Dead last in scoring defense last season, they’re now third best. If they were a stronger rebounding team--they are still basically breaking even on the boards--they would be better still.

At Arizona State, the Bruins held a Sun Devil team shooting 59.1% in the conference to 41.8%. At Arizona, they held a Wildcat team shooting an overall 53.2% to 39.2%.

The Bruins have also been very successful at turning off big scorers, mostly because of Nigel Miguel, the 6-5 point guard who has been matched against all kinds of guards and any forward that Hazzard dares.

Against Washington State, Miguel held 6-7 forward Joe Wallace, then the conference’s leading scorer, to 4 for 18 from the floor. Then Miguel held Arizona State’s leading scorer, 6-6, 205-pound Chris Sandle, to 0 for 3. Next, Hazzard let him try Arizona’s high-jumping 6-7 Eddie Smith, the new Pacific 10 scoring leader, fresh from making his first eight shots and scoring 28 points against USC. When Smith threatened to post Miguel up into early oblivion, Hazzard switched 6-7 freshman Craig Jackson over, and Jackson held Smith to 3 for 14.

Hazzard may try the same combination against Schrempf, first Miguel, then Jackson. If that doesn’t work, expect the rest of the roster to follow in quick order.