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NARROW ESCAPE : After One-Point Victory at Pullman, Bruins Take On Cougars Again Today

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Times Staff Writer

Trevor Wilson’s last-ditch heroics saved the Bruins from defeat in their first game against Washington State this season, a game UCLA finally rallied to win, 64-63, at Pullman, Wash., on Wilson’s rebound shot with two seconds to play.

It was a big victory for the Bruins, launching a six-game winning streak. But Wilson, for one, is hoping that he’s not that kind of hero when the Bruins play the Cougars at Pauley Pavilion at 3 today.

“I hope we don’t have any last-second heroics from anybody,” Wilson said. “I hope we take care of business early and make sure we get the victory. We can’t get ourselves in a hole and then count on a late run to try to come out with the victory.

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“That was one of the things that happened against Arizona State (which upset the Bruins). We had been playing up and down, playing good one game and poorly the next game, depending on the competition. We’d get up for the good teams but be lax for others.

“That’s too dangerous. Arizona State got lucky at the end of that game, the way we had gotten lucky in some others. We were lucky to win at Washington State. When you play that close, anything can happen. When it comes down to one or two plays to determine who wins, it can go either way.”

With three games left in the regular season, the Bruins need to make every one count. One more slip-up like the one at Arizona State, and the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament might be something the Bruins watch on TV.

At this point, the Bruins are in third place in the conference at 11-4, just ahead of Oregon State (11-5). Stanford (14-3) is in second place, still within reach of Arizona (15-1).

“We’ve put ourselves in the position of having no chance to win the regular-season Pac-10 title, so now we have to concentrate on getting some momentum going into the Pac-10 tournament and the NCAA tournament,” Wilson said. “Every game from here on out is vital for our chance of even being in the NCAA tournament, and that’s our goal right now.”

Today’s game against Washington State, which has an 8-16 overall record and is 3-12 in the conference, will be just another game if the Bruins win but could be critical if they lose.

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“I think Washington State has a lot of confidence about playing UCLA because of what happened last year (when the Cougars knocked UCLA out of the Pac-10 tournament),” Wilson said. “I think they felt they could beat us (at Pullman). If it hadn’t been for a couple of lucky plays, they could have. It was a very low-scoring game, which is not our style. We like to get the ball out and run. So that’s what we’re going to have to do Sunday, get our fast break going and play our game from the start.”

A week or so ago, the Bruins might have had to worry about looking past the Cougars to the more challenging game at Berkeley against California Thursday and to the showdown against Arizona at Pauley Pavilion next Saturday in a televised game at 11:30 a.m.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that anymore, not after the conference the team had after the Arizona game,” Wilson said. “We sat down and we talked over some things. We worked out some problems about why we didn’t beat some teams we should beat easily. That’s why we won (Thursday) like we did (101-78 over Washington). We shared the ball, executed things on offense and defense. We just need to keep up this attitude and continue to play up to our ability.”

Bruin Notes

UCLA’s victory over Washington Thursday night was No. 1,200 in school history. . . . Pooh Richardson has played 4,021 minutes of varsity basketball for the Bruins, the most in UCLA history. . . . Washington State has never won at UCLA. The ougars are 0-31 at Los Angeles against UCLA, 0-23 in Pauley Pavilion.

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