Irish Top UCLA, and Hazzard Says Maybe It Shouldn’t Happen again

After losing to Notre Dame for the second straight year, UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard hinted Saturday that the emotion-packed, traditionally wild, always nationally televised game might be dropped from the Bruin schedule.

UCLA had just been beaten, 74-64, at the Athletic and Convocation Center when Hazzard was asked how he felt about the rivalry being cut back a couple of years ago--from a home-and-home, two-game series each season to just one game each season.

“It may come to the point where we might not play Notre Dame,” Hazzard said. “Because of our conference tournament, we will have to eliminate one of our nonconference games.”

Surprised, reporters started to ask why UCLA couldn’t drop a less-popular game. Hazzard did a quick back-pedal. “I didn’t say that was going to happen,” he said. “It’s something we will have to consider in the future.”

Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps was loaded for Bruin when he was given the chance to respond to Hazzard’s mention of dropping the series. Phelps, whose team is 10-2, pointed out that not only has the length of the season been expanded, but the number of games has also been expanded, from 27 to 28, since the addition of so many conference tournaments.

He also mentioned that the NCAA demonstrated last year that it places most emphasis on strength of schedule when picking teams for the tournament.

And then he got to the real shot, his answer to Hazzard’s comment earlier in the week that a nonconference game at this point interrupts the conference season. Phelps said: “Marquette (which, like Notre Dame, does not belong to a conference) has North Carolina this week. I don’t think that’s disrupting (North Carolina Coach) Dean Smith.”

Way to go, Digger. Way to rile him. Put Hazzard down with a reference to one of his least favorite people and, thereby, remind all those folks that UCLA opened this season with a 37-point loss at North Carolina.

Hazzard thought, immediately after the North Carolina game, that maybe the Bruins should drop that series, too--after only one game.

Hazzard, whose Bruins are 8-5, is not at his best after losing a basketball game. He doesn’t take it very well.

In the final seconds of Saturday’s game, he was shouting some parting shots at Notre Dame’s Tim Kempton, the big, red-haired center who had just had his best game in years. Kempton once scored 26 points in a game as a sophomore, but he’d never had 20 points and 10 rebounds and played such a decisive role in a nationally televised game as he did Saturday.

Asked what Hazzard had said to him, Kempton said: “I looked over when I heard him calling my name, but when I caught the tone of it, I just tried to ignore it. I haven’t had that happen to me since high school.”

Kempton got on the bad side of the Bruins early when he hammered center Jack Haley under the UCLA basket and drew an intentional foul less than two minutes into the game.

“Jack Haley was sticking his elbow in my neck,” Kempton said. “I wanted to set the record straight. It wasn’t to hurt him, but to let him know that he was not going to be doing that the entire game.”

Kempton wanted to make sure that if anyone got roughed up, it wouldn’t be the Irish.

In the final tally, there were more fouls called on the Bruins. UCLA scored 4 points on only 5 free throws. Notre Dame scored 16 points on 22 free throws.

Down the stretch, after UCLA had shot its way back into the game and was down by just three points with 1:35 to play, those free throws made the difference.

It was also down the stretch, while the Bruins still had a chance, that they suffered a couple of the calls (or non-calls) that most infuriated them.

Kempton was in on a big one. It was just after he had scored on a rebound to put Notre Dame up, 69-64, with 1:17 to play. Under the Bruin basket, a rebound that first touched Bruin hands was wrested away into Kempton’s hands. Kempton was off-balance as he pulled away from the contact, and he was falling out of bounds. As he went over the end line, he threw the ball with both hands, back over his head, to give the Irish possession.

Hazzard could not believe that the officials had not seen Kempton’s feet out of bounds before his pass.

At the other end, Bruin freshman guard Pooh Richardson fouled Irish sophomore guard David Rivers, who made the front end of a one-and-one and missed the second shot. The rebound was batted around until it ended up in Irish hands.

With a seven-point lead and the ball and with less than a minute on the clock, Rivers was content to dribble in wide circles and wait for the fouls.

Rivers had a one-and-one with 29 seconds to play; he made one and missed one so that the Irish could get the rebound. It was the same scene, again, when he went to the line to shoot two with 22 seconds left. With 23 seconds to play, Rivers made the first and forward Ken Barlow tipped in the second to give the Irish their 10-point final margin.

In the first half, Notre Dame had led by as many as 14 points. The Irish were concentrating on denying UCLA forward Reggie Miller his shot. Miller did not score until the clock showed 7:25 to play in the first half.

“They were playing me with a box-and-one,” Miller said. “In the second half, I just worked harder to get the open shot.”

In the second half, Richardson had whittling away at the Irish lead with his inside game. But Notre Dame was still up by nine points when Miller scored seven unanswered points to pull the Bruins within two. UCLA Guard Montel Hatcher tied it at 48-48 with a quick shot from the top of the key.

Rivers made one of two free throws at the other end, and Richardson came back to give the Bruins their only lead of the game, 50-49, with 9:05 to play, driving the lane for a shot off the glass.

“We lost the 14-point lead for a reason,” Phelps said. “UCLA is a very explosive team. We knew what Reggie Miller and Montel Hatcher could do. We knew we had to control them. They are very explosive scorers. We learned that Richardson is, too.”

Hatcher led the Bruins with 22 points. Miller had 17 and Richardson 16.

Rivers led the Irish with 21. But that’s just an average game for him. Richardson did an admirable job playing man-to-man on one of the best guards in the country.

Hazzard called Richardson’s play “outstanding.”

Considering the way the Bruins came back and made a game of it at the end, Hazzard wasn’t all that snarly after the game.

“I’m very proud of my team this afternoon,” he said. “A break here or there and we would have won. . . . We have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s tough to come in here and play, and we didn’t quit. We won’t quit. That’s the way it’s going to be as long as I’m coach.”