UCLA Finds It’s a Newell Day for Cal Basketball : Bears Turn Back Clock by Honoring Former Coach and Routing Bruins, 83-70

On a night when California basketball recalled great moments from the past, dedicating Harmon Arena as Pete Newell Court in honor of the only coach to lead the Bears to a national championship, the 1987 team created a memory of its own.

UCLA, the team this town loves to hate, was blown out in convincing fashion, 83-70, Monday night before a crowd of 6,450 and a national television audience, thanks mostly to a big first half.

It was what you could call a clockwork night for Cal. First, the Bears turned back the clock and brought many of Newell’s former players back for the ceremonies, and then they cleaned UCLA’s clock to open the Pacific 10 Conference season.

If Bruin Coach Walt Hazzard is ticked, he had reason to be. The 83 points are the most Cal has scored against UCLA since a 113-93 loss in the 1975-76 season and is the most ever in a Cal victory in the 178-game series.

The loss drops UCLA to 3-5 with its next game on Wednesday against Stanford in Palo Alto. Cal, which plays host to USC the same night, is 4-2 and has a three-game winning streak.

Forward Matt Beeuwsaert led Cal with a career-high 29 points, after hitting only 5 of 27 shots from the field in the previous three games. Freshman guard Ryan Drew, who replaced Bryant Walton, the former star at Saddleback High School in Santa Ana, as the starting guard, added 16 for Cal, and Jim Beatie had 12.

“I like to play UCLA because they’re from my area,” said Beeuwsaert, who played at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana before going to Notre Dame and then transferring to Cal. “I’m always up for UCLA.”

UCLA’s Dave Immel scored a team-high 24 points, 22 of which came in the second half. That is the kind of game it was for the Bruins, who outscored Cal in the final 20 minutes, 44-38, and still shot 37.8% from the field overall.

The blowout started early, which, in turn, put the boisterous crowd in the game from the start, something the Bruins were trying to avoid.

Cal used an 8-1 run to turn a 4-4 game into no contest, getting 16 points from Beeuwsaert in the first 20 minutes and 11 from Drew en route to a 45-26 lead at halftime. The Bears shot 55.6% from the field in that time, including five of six three-pointers, contrasted with 40% for the Bruins.

The most eye-opening statistic: only once in the first 16 minutes did UCLA score two baskets within a minute and that was from 11:23 to 10:43 with the benefit of a timeout. By that time, Cal had opened a 24-12 advantage. After a four-minute Bruin scoreless streak, Cal led, 31-14.

The cold shooting was a combination of bad shot selection by the Bruins and good defense by Cal, again. No team has shot 50% or better against the Bears this season.

UCLA put together another dry spell, this time for three minutes early in the second half, and it put the Bruins behind 57-36. They pulled within 12 several times late in the game, but never closer.

“An old-fashioned whipping,” Hazzard said. “We didn’t play well in the first half, and we got in a hole.

“They outhustled us, and I’m ashamed to say that as a coach. They beat us. They played a very good game.

“I talked to them (the Bruins) at halftime, I talked to them, talked to them, talked to them for the last 48 hours, but that was not enough. You can say it’s youth, but that’s not enough. I expect some enthusiasm to show up.”

The notion of having the Newell dedication when UCLA came to town no doubt wasn’t lost on the Bruins, who began the night having won 56 of the last 57 games with the Bears. That included a sweep of three games last season.

Judging by the outpouring at halftime, Newell, who also coached the University of San Francisco, Michigan State and the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, is still regarded as something of a legend in the Bay Area. From 1954-60, he led Cal to a 119-44 record, finishing off with a combined 44-2 with his last two teams there.

The year after he left, UCLA began its 52-game winning streak against the Bears. Newell’s return on Monday helped remind people of when things were good in the program, although the Bears on the court did their part, too.

Bruin Notes

After the play Stanford, the Bruins return to Pauley Pavilion for a couple of nonconference games, Dec. 28 against Cal State Fullerton and Jan. 2 against North Carolina. . . . Bryant Walton, who lost his starting spot after shooting 23% from the field in the first four games, hit 3 of 5 field goals after coming off the bench and finished with 7 points and 4 rebounds in 21 minutes. He scored 15 points in a reserve role last Friday against Drexel. . . . With the graduation of Reggie Miller, Trevor Wilson became the fans’ whipping boy. After almost every foul or bad play, he was serenaded with, “Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.” Last year, the Cal band wore big paper ears to taunt Miller. . . . Cal Coach Lou Campanelli said the Pete Newell ceremonies didn’t do much for his team, motivation wise. “If there was (added incentive), it was a silent type of thing,” said Campanelli, who is 2-4 against UCLA but 30-6 overall at Harmon Arena. “We didn’t make too much out of it to the team.” Likewise, he said, this victory isn’t as euphoric as two seasons ago when the Bears broke their 52-game losing streak against UCLA. “The emotions are not the same,” he said. “That other game ended a streak that lasted 26 years, a kind of abnormal situation. Since that time, we haven’t approached UCLA was that kind of emotion.” . . . For his third straight game, Cal’s Leonard Taylor went through pregame warmups, but it’s looking more and more as if the senior forward will redshirt this season.