Richardson Says Bruin Failures Not Hazzard’s Fault

It was after 1 a.m. Saturday morning and the final press conference of the day for the media covering Friday’s games at the Pacific 10 Conference basketball tournament was breaking up when UCLA guard Pooh Richardson leaned toward a microphone and asked to make a statement.

His Bruin team had just been eliminated from the tournament. The Bruins were going nowhere with a 16-14 record. The defending Pac-10 champions finished tied for second in the regular conference standings but were seeded third in the tournament and lost to the sixth-seeded team.

Richardson wanted to defend Coach Walt Hazzard before the columns were written.

Richardson said: “Coach has been trying to get us together all year. The team has to take the responsibility for the horrible record. I don’t care if it’s over .500, it’s not the kind of ball I like to play. So, if you’re going to tear it up, tear it up on us. The man can’t go out and play for us. We knew this team shouldn’t beat us. He laid it out there for us, and we didn’t take advantage of it.

“Now we’re going home. The coach usually takes the blame, but it’s our fault. We didn’t go out and do what he told us to do. It just wasn’t there and it finally caught up with us.”

Hazzard, Pac-10 coach of the year last season, received a two-year extension on his contract last summer. His contract runs through the 1989-90 season. Hazzard’s four-year record as UCLA coach is 77-47.