Freshman Murray Emerges as a Star for UCLA, 89-74 : College basketball: Center scores season-high 20 points and gets six rebounds in victory over American University.

UCLA’s play against its guests from the nation’s capital Tuesday night not only was inhospitable, it was downright un-American.

Prone to squandering big leads this season, the Bruins didn’t let up in beating American, 89-74, before 5,468 at Pauley Pavilion.

In the process, they may have found a new center.

Freshman Tracy Murray, in his longest stint of the season, made eight of 16 shots, scored a season-high 20 points, pulled down six rebounds--five on the offensive end--and blocked three shots in 25 minutes.

And with senior starter Kevin Walker struggling . . .

“I think he needs to be on the floor a little bit more, regardless of where it is,” Coach Jim Harrick said of Murray, who averaged 15 minutes and six points in UCLA’s first five games, “and it’s hard to find time for him at the forward position.”

Those positions are manned by Don MacLean, who had 20 points and seven rebounds, and Trevor Wilson, who played perhaps his best all-around game of the season, finishing with 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists.

Will Murray soon join them in the starting lineup?

“I don’t know,” Harrick said. “Might be. Maybe.”

Walker, averaging only 3.8 points and 2.5 rebounds, played well in a brief appearance, scoring six points and taking four rebounds in 15 minutes.

“Walker woke up a little tonight,” Harrick said. “He played well, but then Tracy came in and played really, really well.”

Harrick likes what Murray provides the Bruins as a reserve.

“He comes off the bench and within five seconds, he gets an offensive-rebound basket,” Harrick said. “That just takes so much pressure off your team. He blocked (three) shots. He’s got long arms. He’s always around the ball. Almost every time, he’s involved in the play.”

And if he continues to play well, he will be involved more.

“Most of the guys that play well get to play,” Harrick said.

But if Harrick is reluctant to replace Walker in the starting lineup, American Coach Ed Tapscott made it clear that Murray has options.

“Tell him if he’s not getting enough playing time here, come East,” Tapscott said. “I’ll start him. The young man has boatloads of talent. That’s the next star player at UCLA. He’s very talented and gifted.”

He’s also content, for now, to play any role asked of him.

“Coach is going to put me wherever I fit,” Murray said.

Where he fit against American was in the middle of a 9-0 run that gave UCLA (5-1) a 40-31 lead with 3:51 left before halftime.

Murray, who scored 10 points Sunday in an 86-84 loss at Notre Dame, scored eight points during the Bruin burst, starting it with a baseline jumper, then converting a steal into a three-point play.

After MacLean added a free throw, Murray made a three-pointer, finishing the half with 12 points.

Wilson also scored 12 points in the half and, perhaps as important, harassed American forward Ron Draper, a highly regarded senior from Pomona High School who made only one of 10 first-half shots.

“He can’t score on me,” Wilson told Harrick at halftime.

Not much, anyway.

Draper, who was the Eagles’ leading scorer and the nation’s No. 3 rebounder last season when he averaged 16.4 points and 12 rebounds, scored only six points, making only two of 18 shots, and had five rebounds.

“It’s extremely difficult to come home . . . you try so hard to play well,” Tapscott said of Draper. “You also have to give some credit to Trevor Wilson. He did a nice job on Ron--forced him away from the basket and just made him work for everything.

“When you have all those things going against you, it’s quite a mountain to climb.”

The Eagles in general faced a mountain after the first three minutes of the second half, giving up eight straight points to fall behind, 54-38.

Sunday, UCLA blew a 14-point lead against Notre Dame, so anything seemed possible, but this time the Bruins didn’t buckle.

American got no closer than five points the rest of the way.

Forward Daryl Holmes led the Eagles, who lost for only the second time in eight games, scoring 27 points and getting 12 rebounds while playing all 40 minutes. Guards Brock Wortman and Brian Gilgeous each scored 13.

“I thought we played well,” Tapscott said, nodding toward Harrick as the Bruin coach left a postgame news conference. “Jim just has a deeper, more talented team. They get more athletic and energetic coming off the bench.”

Murray is an example of that.

Bruin Notes

At his weekly news conference Monday, Coach Jim Harrick derided the state of officiating in college basketball, saying that while the quality of play has improved, “you don’t see any better officiating than you saw 10 years ago or 20 years ago.” . . . Harrick didn’t like the call against Trevor Wilson Sunday that sent Jamere Jackson to the line for the deciding points in Notre Dame’s 86-84 victory over the Bruins. “It was really, really a questionable foul at the end,” he said. “You just don’t make that (call). You let the players decide the game. You don’t let officials decide the game.”

Wishful thinking: According to Harrick, “We won’t be in a more adverse situation than we were at Notre Dame.” Still to come for the Bruins are games at Louisville, Arizona and Oregon State. . . . Absentees for the Bruins Tuesday night: Reserve guard Jeff Bronner has strep throat and did not suit up and Rodney Odom, a 6-foot-11 freshman who is redshirting this season, was at home in Kingwood, Tex., where he will spend the holidays.