A Sure-Handed Welp Is Too Big a Test for Short-Handed Bruins

It’s now 0-2 in the Pac-10 and counting for UCLA, a team with a definite numbers problem. The Bruins had enough trouble winning a Pac-10 game with 12 players, so what chance did they have with only eight?

Actually, the Bruins gave it a pretty good shot Sunday afternoon against Washington, even though four players were sitting out a one-game suspension for breaking training rules.

As Greg Foster, Charles Rochelin, Rod Palmer and Isaac Hamilton watched from the Bruin bench in street clothes, it became clear that eight was not enough to beat the Huskies.

Washington sprung loose 7-foot center Chris Welp, who scored a career-high 40 points, nearly half of the Huskies’ entire production in a 90-80 victory over the outnumbered Bruins. Welp made 14 of 20 field goal attempts and all 12 free throw attempts.

So UCLA dropped its fourth game in a row and its second conference game in three days.

Where do the Bruins go from here?

“We’re at the bottom of the wine cellar,” Reggie Miller said. “We’ve got to dig our way out.”

That task may become a little easier. First, the Bruins don’t have to face Welp for a while. Also, they are heading home to Pauley again for their next four games, and when they get there, once again they will have their full complement of players.

Coach Walt Hazzard said the four players he benched apologized to their teammates and their suspension is officially over.

“They have served their sentence,” Hazzard said. “That’s it. (Without the four) we just had to take the consequences of the game. The gesture was absolutely necessary, and I hope our young men learned something from it.”

Foster, who would have come in handy against Welp, refused to comment about the reasons why he and the three others were suspended.

“No, man, I can’t say nothing,” Foster said.

Miller, who played the entire game until fouling out with 14 seconds left, scored 26 points. He said the Bruins could have used some more players.

“It would have helped to have a lot more players--it would have helped to have Kareem,” he said, meaning the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Instead, the Bruins had Jack Haley, who held up remarkably well in the first half before Welp wore him down when the Huskies began to hammer the ball inside in the second half.

Welp scored 28 of his 40 points and forward Phil Zevenbergen had 14 of his 20 points in the second half. The Huskies turned around a 39-36 UCLA halftime lead when they suddenly became conscious of the Bruins’ numbers problem.

“They were a little thin,” Welp said. “I think it hurt them in the second half.”

The Huskies, who opened their Pac-10 season with a win, never trailed after they scored on 11 of 13 possessions during a five-minute stretch of the second half to take a 63-57 lead.

Welp scored 10 points in that span, and each of his five field goals were scored so close to the hoop that he could have touched it. Zevenbergen added six more points during the 18-10 Husky rally, and all of them were on inside moves.

When Welp dropped a couple of free throws with 3:14 to go, Washington moved out to a 77-69 lead, but there was still time for one last Bruin charge.

Montel Hatcher, held scoreless in his six-minute appearance in the first half, finally solved his shooting problems and scored 14 points in the second. Two jumpers by Hatcher and a third by Dave Immel, who had 14 points and 5 assists, got the Bruins back to within 79-75 with 1:18 to go.

But that’s as close as they got. UCLA did not score again until Haley made two free throws with 18 seconds left, and by then, the Huskies had already put the game away, 87-75.

Haley wound up with 10 points, 12 rebounds and a lot of respect for Welp.

“I had a heck of a working experience,” Haley said. “He’s a great Division I center, and in the second half, the ball was coming to him inside untouched.”

Once again, Pooh Richardson held the Bruins together with 11 assists and kept UCLA running at a favorable pace in the first half. But later, Husky guard Al Moscatel made sure the ball went inside to Welp and to Zevenbergen and the Bruins seemed to run out of gas.

Both Miller and Richardson played the whole 40 minutes, and Haley was on the court for all but two minutes. Then Miller had his problems on offense against Eldridge Recasner and failed to score after his three-pointer with 11:38 to play.

Hazzard said Recasner was great at holding Miller down.

“He did a good job of holding Reggie, all right,” Hazzard said. “He held his shorts, he held his shirt, he held everything. Yes, he did an outstanding job of holding.”

Washington made 68% of its field goal attempts in the second half and finished the game at 65.3%, an inflated statistic considering how close the Huskies often were when shooting the ball.

Hazzard said he would make no excuses for the loss but he did admit that Foster’s presence might have made a difference against Washington’s front line.

“They were a big factor at the offensive end,” he said. “Foster would have given us a few more things inside, but he wasn’t there today. If we had another big inside player playing Welp, we could have worn him down. We just didn’t have that today.”

Bruin Notes

Chris Welp’s 40 points were the fifth highest total in Washington history. Welp was 8 of 9 shooting in the second half and made 11 of his last 12 field goal attempts. Welp said he feels some pressure being regarded as one of the two best centers in the country. “I have to go out and prove it every game,” Welp said. “When I play against another team and don’t score 40 points, people won’t be satisfied.” . . . Jack Haley outrebounded Welp, 12-9, and UCLA won on the boards, at least, 28-27 . . . The Bruins, 0-4 away from Pauley this season, are 6-23 on the road in the regular season the last three years.