Bruins Get a Win for the Road

Maybe the only thing UCLA needed after all was just one monster dunk, a single super slam to get rid of the ball-and-chain that clanked along behind the Bruins whenever they played a road game.

Perhaps that is what Jack Haley’s dunk shot meant to the Bruins Thursday night. What did it do? It actually stopped time.

Haley slammed a dunk shot through the rim with such force that the 45-second shot clock was sprung from its moorings when the rim snapped back into place. Technicians were unable to repair the clock that Jack broke.

“It’s the first time I ever broke a building,” Haley said.

It also was to be the first time UCLA had won a road game this season. The Bruins unleashed a powerful attack on the Sun Devils of Arizona State in a 61-51 victory that ended an 0-4 start on the road.

To start with, there was Montel Hatcher, who is no longer a starter and none too happy about it either, but who came off the bench and matched his career high with 27 points.

Hatcher got his shots because he wasn’t sick, which made him unusual because almost everybody else was. The Bruins, who had 21 turnovers, passed the flu bug around better than the basketball. Reggie Miller, Dave Immel, Greg Foster and Kevin Walker all played ill, and Miller scored a season-low six points.

So UCLA had to look elsewhere for its punch, and Hatcher provided it. Not one of his teammates scored more than six points.

“We wouldn’t have had a chance without him,” Coach Walt Hazzard said. Hatcher made 11 of 13 shots and scored 20 points in the second half, when the Bruins got ahead by 12 with him bagging 10 points in just over three minutes.

What had been a 34-31 UCLA lead in a fumble-fingered game of turnovers quickly turned around to 44-35 on its way to 56-42 on the second most impressive play of the night, right after the time when Haley played beat the clock.

Hatcher made a four-point play. He sank a three-pointer from behind the line, was fouled and made the free throw. This play also meant that Hatcher shot for the cycle.

You hear about that sometimes in baseball. But in basketball?

Hatcher had a four-point play, a three-point play, a bunch of two-point plays and completed the cycle with a one-point play, a single free throw, with 26 seconds left.

Something that Hatcher did not do, however, was get his starting job back, the one that Immel now has. Hatcher said he is struggling to adjust.

“I don’t like it, but what can I do?” Hatcher said. “It’s a coach’s decision. But I’m not happy. I still think I’m playing the same way I was when he took me out.”

Hazzard said Hatcher will still get a lot of playing time, even if it isn’t as a starter.

“It’s not easy coming off the bench as a senior after being a starter for two years,” Hazzard said.

Haley’s slam was a whole lot more fun. He said he had a name for the one-handed dunk.

“In surfing, you hang 10,” he said. “This was a hang-5 dunk.” Immel, listening nearby, said he has come up with a new nickname for Haley.

What? “Vanilla Thunder,” Immel said.

For awhile, it didn’t seem as though the game would be a laughing matter. At halftime, the game was tied. It also should have been bound and gagged and thrown into some closet beneath the stands.

UCLA committed 12 turnovers, went more than seven minutes without a point and still retired to the locker room at halftime with the score 22-22 because the Sun Devils were just as bad as the Bruins.

Arizona State’s bookend guards, 6-3 Steve Beck and 5-9 Arthur Thomas, kept Coach Steve Patterson’s team competitive and finished with 29 points between them. But the Sun Devils shot just 38.5%, were outrebounded, 40-23, and never hurt the Bruins much after UCLA solved its turnover problems resulting from Patterson’s zone defense.

“Those turnovers were just mental errors,” Hazzard explained. “Their match-up zone just froze us for a moment.”

Now that they have won for the first time on the road, the Bruins may actually be beginning to thaw out.

Bruin Notes UCLA assistant coach Jack Hirsch missed the game with the flu, his first absence from a game in the seven years he has been with Coach Walt Hazzard. . . . Freshman forward Trevor Wilson had nine rebounds to lead both teams. UCLA is 8-4 overall and 3-2 in the Pac-10. ASU is 4-7 and 0-3. . . . For the first time this season, Pooh Richardson had more turnovers (seven) than assists (six).