UCLA Has Day of Nightmares : Elliott Gets 35; Arizona Hands Bruins Worst Loss Ever, 102-64

Only a week ago, the UCLA basketball team said that its victory over Louisville showed it could play with anybody.

Make that almost anybody.

The Bruins were simply no match for Arizona and its star, Sean Elliott, who played “the best game of his career” in the estimation of his coach, surrounded by a sea of red in the Wildcats’ sold-out McKale Center.

All of this took place Saturday afternoon, when Elliott and the second-ranked Wildcats overwhelmed the bewildered Bruins, 102-64, before a crowd of 13,641, saddling UCLA with the worst loss in its history. Previously, the Bruins’ worst defeat was at North Carolina, 107-70, in the opening game of the 1985-86 season.

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick came closer last season, when he brought Pepperdine into McKale and lost by only five points.

On that night, though, Elliott wasn’t in position to overtake Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as the Pacific 10 Conference’s all-time leading scorer.

However, he was ready this time.

Elliott passed the former Bruin in spectacular fashion, making 12 of 22 shots, including six of 12 three-pointers, and scoring 35 points to go along with a career-high 11 assists and seven rebounds.

Afterward, as Elliott made his way off the court following a brief award presentation, the Arizona band serenaded him with the theme from “Superman.”

“Sean Elliott’s total game, I would guess, was the best of his career,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said.

And the Wildcats, as a team, played their best game of the season, Olson said, a broad smile creasing his face.

As for UCLA, Olson said: “There are nightmares like this that happen, when nothing goes right.”

UCLA need not feel too bad, though. Nightmares have become routine for Wildcat opponents.

Arizona has won 12 of its last 13 games, is 20-3 overall and, with a victory Thursday night over Arizona State, can earn at least a share of its second straight Pac-10 championship and third in four years.

The Wildcats have won 32 straight games in McKale, the nation’s longest current home winning streak, and since losing at Stanford Jan. 5, they have won their last 11 conference games by an average of 23 points.

Arizona is 14-1 in the conference, 2 1/2 games ahead of Stanford and 3 1/2 games ahead of UCLA and Oregon State.

Still, UCLA didn’t figure to get whipped so thoroughly, even after it lost unexpectedly last Thursday night at Arizona State.

But Arizona opened a 41-27 halftime lead as Elliott scored all 10 Arizona points in a 10-2 run midway through the first half, then scored five points and passed to Anthony Cook for a dunk in a 7-0 run shortly before the intermission.

In the first half, Elliott had 20 points, making seven of 11 shots and adding six rebounds and four assists.

And his best was still ahead.

After UCLA’s Kevin Walker opened the second half with a short hook shot that pulled the Bruins within 41-29, Elliott took over.

As the Wildcats outscored UCLA, 21-2, in a spectacular run of 4 minutes 37 seconds, Elliott bombed the Bruins from the outside, making three three-point shots, and turned their heads with five assists.

“Elliott is virtually unstoppable,” Harrick said. “A guy that can shoot that well outside and is that quick--he’s really something.”

Arizona’s lead had grown to 62-31, and all that was left was for Elliott to chase the 20-year-old career scoring record.

As he closed in on it, a message flashed across the scoreboard.

“Get rowdy,” it said.

File that under the category, “Wasted words.”

The crowd went wild when Elliott broke the record by sinking a free throw with 7:10 left, and again moments later when it was announced that Elliott had been taken out of the game.

This came only 24 hours after Elliott and Olson had faced questions about Elliott’s slump, in which he shot only 37.5% in four games.

“I’ll guarantee you his slump will end tomorrow,” Olson said Friday. “He’s the best big-game player I’ve ever had, or seen.”

Saturday’s opponent being UCLA, which once was the dominant force in the Pac-10, this qualified as a big game for the Wildcats.

For the Bruins, though, it may have been even more important.

Their two losses in Arizona dropped them to 16-7 overall and 10-4 in the Pac-10 and undoubtedly created doubts in the minds of the selection committee members as to the Bruins’ qualifications for a berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

“I think we just came down here, got in the sun and took a little vacation,” Harrick said.

The Bruins made only 38.5% of their shots, their worst performance of the season, and were outrebounded, 46-31.

Harrick said Arizona is quicker, rebounds better and is better defensively than it was a year ago, when the Wildcats were 35-3 and reached the Final Four.

“We weren’t passing the ball and when we did, we couldn’t catch it,” Harrick said. “I don’t understand why you can’t catch it. Sometimes, though, you’re just out of sync.”

And sometimes everything seems to work, which was the case for the Wildcats.

“We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we are better than last year’s team,” Olson said.

One thing seems certain: When they play as they did in dispatching the Bruins, the Wildcats are out of UCLA’s league.

Bruin Notes

Anthony Cook scored 19 points for Arizona, making nine of 13 shots, and Jud Buechler led the Wildcats with 13 rebounds. . . . Pooh Richardson made seven of 11 shots and led UCLA with 16 points and five assists. . . . In case you’re wondering, Kentucky didn’t lose at Lexington, Ky., between 1943 and 1955, winning 129 straight home games to establish a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record. UCLA once won 98 straight home games.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the former Lew Alcindor, scored 2,325 points in 88 games at UCLA. Elliott has scored 2,327 points in 123 games at Arizona.

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, asked by a Tucson reporter if he considered himself lucky last spring when he signed Don MacLean: “Luck is going to Tucson and having Sean Elliott sitting there waiting for you.” Harrick’s reference was to Arizona Coach Lute Olson, who, in his first season at Arizona after leaving Iowa, signed Elliott out of Tucson’s Cholla High School. . . . UCLA will play Washington Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.