UCLA’s Hotshot Freshman : MacLean Making Points With His Scoring Repertoire

Don MacLean races downcourt as the UCLA fast break unfolds. He catches an outlet pass, dribbles around a defender and launches a shot that floats into the net.

On UCLA’s next trip downcourt, MacLean sets up on the baseline. Taking another pass, he pump-fakes a defender into the air and banks in a shot.

When a teammate misses a shot on the Bruins’ succeeding possession, MacLean tips it in.

MacLean is fouled as he’s shooting. He adjusts his shorts as he steps to the line and takes a deep breath before sinking two free throws.

“Don MacLean is a four-star player,” said Jim Harrick, UCLA’s basketball coach. “He can score in four different ways. He scores on the break. He scores within the framework of the offense. He scores on put-backs and he hits his foul shots. He’s got an innate ability with a great touch.”

MacLean’s versatility has impressed other coaches, too.

“Don MacLean is a great player,” Kelvin Sampson of Washington State said. “Most guys are one-dimensional. They’re either inside or outside players. He can do both. And at 6-10 he has a feathery shooting touch.

“He pads his point total at the free throw line. A lot of guys forget that those points add up, too.

“At times he plays like a freshman, but he’s going to be one of the great players in the Pac-10 before it’s over.”

MacLean, a 6-foot-10 forward, is flourishing as a freshman.

“It’s obvious that he has great hands and a good shooting touch,” Jerry West, Laker president, said. “He has the poise and ability to play the game. You just hope that a kid like that continues to improve because he looks like he’s going to be real good in the future.”

MacLean isn’t bad in the present.

UCLA’s leading scorer with an average of 19.9 points, he has been consistent, having scored in double figures in 18 of 19 games this season. He’s averaging 7.8 rebounds, second best on the team behind Trevor Wilson.

“Don has meant everything to our team,” senior guard Pooh Richardson said. “Don MacLean complements Trevor very well. Even when he’s not shooting well he plays hard. He gives us more inside play and he’s been very consistent rebounding.”

Said Wilson, who led the Bruins in scoring last year with a 15.5-point average: “We knew he was going to step in and be an impact player right away. This is great for our team because it takes a lot of pressure off me and Pooh.”

MacLean has broken UCLA freshman scoring records for a single game and a single season.

He has scored 379 points in 19 games and overtaken Rod Foster as the highest scoring freshman. Foster scored 368 points in 32 games in 1980.

And MacLean moved into elite company with his record 41 points against North Texas State in December. Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, Gail Goodrich and Reggie Miller are the only Bruins who have scored more points in a game.

Coach John Gales of North Texas State was impressed.

“He’s just a freshman?” Gales asked. “Wow! We won’t be scheduling them no more till after Mac-Lean leaves. But they already told us to come back anytime.

“I tried to make a trade for MacLean. They could take any two of our players for him. But they wouldn’t go for it.”

MacLean’s sudden impact has been unexpected.

“I think MacLean has surprised everyone, including himself, with the way he’s playing,” said Coach George Raveling of USC, whose team plays MacLean and the Bruins tonight at Pauley Pavilion.

“The most impressive thing about him is his poise. It’s evident that his teammates and the coaches have a lot of confidence in him because they want him to have the ball in critical situations.

“Do I like MacLean? Yes. Why, is he thinking about transferring?”

STARTING YOUNG

Don MacLean was in sixth grade when he met Jim Harrick.

MacLean was playing on a youth basketball team coached by Harrick, whose son Glenn was also on the team.

The relationship continued when MacLean attended Harrick’s basketball camp at Pepperdine.

Harrick watched MacLean blossom at Simi Valley High, where he averaged 26.3 points and 12.6 rebounds and was twice voted the Southern Section 4-A player of the year.

Although Harrick coveted Mac-Lean, he figured, rightly, that the talented youngster was beyond Pepperdine’s reach.

Heavily recruited, MacLean narrowed his list of colleges to UCLA and Georgia Tech.

“We thought he was going to be a great one,” Coach Bobby Cremins of Georgia Tech said. “We fell in love with him. He could do it all. Initially, I thought he could start for us.”

And, had things worked out differently, perhaps MacLean would have.

While he was weighing his decision, UCLA was in turmoil. After firing Coach Walt Hazzard, being rebuffed by Larry Brown and talking with Jim Valvano, the Bruins hired Harrick.

And after meeting with Harrick, MacLean signed with UCLA.

“I was holding out to see who UCLA was going to hire,” MacLean said. “Right when it came down to where I had to make a decision, UCLA still didn’t have a coach after firing Hazzard.

“I really wasn’t happy with the way the program was when Coach Hazzard was here. But I felt Coach Harrick was going to do a great job. I felt confident that he’d bring in other players to help the program be successful.

“I’m glad I came here. It’s worked out really well for me so far. I’m happy to be playing for Coach Harrick.”

HOME SUITE HOME

Suite 815 in the Northern Towers looks like nothing special from the outside.

Appearances can be deceiving.

It has become the final resting place for banners that TV networks hang in Pauley Pavilion during games.

Banners from ABC, NBC, ESPN and the NCAA tournament are prominently displayed.

Five TV sets blare and there are no parents to complain about the noise.

This is home away from home for three-fifths of the UCLA basketball team’s starting lineup.

Don MacLean and Trevor Wilson, starting forwards, and Darrick Martin, starting guard, share the room with Darrin Dafney, a reserve guard.

Before coming to UCLA, they were teammates on the M-Squad, which won a national youth basketball championship in the American Roundball Corp. in 1987.

They’ve made up nicknames for one another.

“We call Don ‘Cowboy’ because he’s from the Simi Valley and he used to ride a horse to school,” Wilson joked.

A weightlifter, Wilson is known as Rock.

Martin is Squirrel Man, because he scampers like a squirrel, and Dafney is Dangerous Darrin.

The four share the chores, such as cleaning.

“When it’s Don’s turn, one of us has to come up behind him,” Wilson said.

FAMILY TIES

Heads turned when young Don MacLean walked onto the court with the Simi Valley Vikings youth basketball team.

“Who’s that tall kid?” a parent asked. “He must be too old to play with these kids.”

Said MacLean’s mother, Pat: “We thought of bringing his birth certificate.”

The talk stopped as soon as his parents showed up. Pat MacLean is 6-1 and her ex-husband, Jim, stands 6-8.

MacLean was 6-2 as a seventh grader and he grew two inches a year for the next four years.

Bob Hawking, MacLean’s coach, grew accustomed to the constant furor over MacLean’s size. He also became a second father to Mac-Lean.

“I spent as much time with Don as I did my own son,” Hawking said.

Living just a block apart, Butch Hawking, the coach’s son, and MacLean were almost as close as brothers.

“I can remember when the boys were in second grade, Don would spend the night at our house and in the morning they’d race out for the paper,” Jeannie Hawking said. “They learned to read by reading the L.A. Times (results) page.”

Teammates since grade school, they had a sixth sense on the basketball court. As point guard, Butch set up MacLean for easy shots.

It was a winning combination.

The Simi Valley Vikings won 55 consecutive games. But MacLean and Hawking really blossomed at Simi Valley High, which was 81-9 over the last three seasons.

But MacLean and the Hawkings parted after high school.

MacLean enrolled at UCLA and Butch Hawking got an appointment to the Air Force Academy, where he’s a reserve on the basketball team.

“I haven’t gotten to watch Don play much because we don’t get many privileges at the academy in our first year,” Butch Hawking said. “But when I was home for Christmas, we got together and watched a tape of the UCLA-Stanford game (in which MacLean scored 26 points).

“I’m not surprised that Don is playing so well. Don’s always been a great player. I knew when he moved up to UCLA that he’d raise his play a level or two.”

While MacLean dreams of playing in the National Basketball Assn., Hawking is hoping, ultimately, to become a doctor, a sports medicine specialist.

And Coach Hawking resigned from Simi Valley after last season.

“For me, it was like a lifelong project,” Hawking said. “Not too many guys get to coach their own sons and have such a group of talented kids.”

Under consideration for a job on Harrick’s UCLA staff, Hawking eventually was hired as an assistant at Pepperdine, Harrick’s old school.

Small world.