Stanford Has Good Chance to End Streak

Decades have passed. There have been games at the old Bruin gymnasium, at the Sports Arena, at Santa Monica City College, at Long Beach City College and, of course, at Pauley Pavilion. Since 1952, Stanford has come to play UCLA and has always come up short.

On the road, in whatever building Stanford played UCLA, Stanford lost to UCLA.

But the Cardinal, which has not won at UCLA in 36 years, gets a chance to end that obnoxious streak tonight at Pauley Pavilion. Many believe it’s a pretty good chance.

A Stanford team that is regarded, with Arizona, as the class of the Pacific 10 Conference will play a UCLA team that took its lumps last season and now wonders how good it really is. Soon after the 8:30 p.m. tip-off at Pauley, where Stanford has dropped 23 straight, the real Pac-10 title contender ought to be known.

Despite the streak, that figures to be Stanford, the team of All-American candidate Todd Lichti and featuring Coach Mike Montgomery’s Wall of Flesh. These players were not recruited, they were rounded up. They have names, too: 6-8 Howard Wright, 6-8 Eric Reveno, 6-7 Andrew Vlahov, 6-9 Adam Keefe.

Like UCLA, which leveled Cal in its Pac-10 opener, 76-59, the Cardinal is also 1-0 after a 28-point embarrassment of Oregon State. Stanford, however, knows something about being embarrassed.

“That Pauley Pavilion ghost and John Wooden and all the championship banners hanging up there has had an effect on our team,” Wright said. “But that was when we were all younger. Something would go wrong and we’d say, ‘Oh, no! We’re going to lose again at Pauley.’

“Playing UCLA has always been a big goal for us, even though Pauley Pavilion has proven to be an elusive place for us to win. We feel like we should have won some of those games. This time, we just don’t want to be denied.

“If UCLA is really the better team, we would like for them to prove it.”

Wright is Montgomery’s starting center in a front line that probably is the best in the conference. That’s because Montgomery, a patron of the big man’s game, moved from Montana of the Big Sky and elevated the strength game to a new level at Stanford, formerly the land of the big skinny.

The Bruins had some trouble with Cal’s 6-8 center Leonard Taylor, who had 26 points and 9 rebounds, and figure to have even more problems battling 4 just like him, because what may be Stanford’s greatest strength--its front-line depth--may be UCLA’s biggest weakness.

“We’ve got some big, able bodies,” Wright said.

Bruin Trevor Wilson, who is going to draw a lot of attention around the backboards, isn’t quite ready to concede yet.

“We’ve just got to do the job on the boards, do what we’re capable of doing and we’ll be all right,” he said. “If we can do that, I think we’ve got a good chance of winning.”

Unlike what happened to UCLA in its game at North Carolina, Stanford actually had a good chance of winning at Chapel Hill. The Cardinal led at the half and lost by 11, which was better than it sounds. UCLA wound up losing by 26, which was probably worse than it sounds.

Wright watched the Bruins lose to North Carolina on television, 104-78.

“They seemed to get down on themselves when things went bad,” Wright said. “Instead of coming together, they went their separate ways, which is characteristic of what they have done in the past.”

And now?

“Well, let me say this: UCLA is always a big game for us. I hope they’re looking forward to playing us because we are definitely looking forward to playing them.”