So Much for the Glory : UCLA: Trevor Wilson’s injury, the team’s dismal shooting and a reputation for being whiners have all contributed to Bruins’ high hopes taking a big fall.

Reports of UCLA’s basketball resurgence have been greatly exaggerated.

“The Bruins Are Back,” trumpeted Sport magazine.

Asked a headline over a picture of forward Don MacLean on the cover of the Sporting News: “UCLA: A Return to Glory?” And read another headline below the picture: “At long last, the Bruins seem ready to climb out from under Wooden’s shadow.”

Not just yet.

The Bruins are 16-7 overall, 9-5 and fourth in the Pacific 10 Conference and out of the top 25 for the first time this season.

They have lost three consecutive games, four of their last five conference games and last week lost for the first time in Pauley Pavilion to California and Stanford.

Tonight, they open a two-game “monster trip,” to use guard Gerald Madkins’ description, playing Oregon at McArthur Court.

It could turn out to be the beast that swallows the Bruins.

Oregon has lost only twice in 10 games this season in the Pit--to Oregon State by two points and to Cal by one. And Saturday at Corvallis, Ore., UCLA will play conference-leading Oregon State in Gary Payton’s final game in Gill Coliseum.

Return to glory?

The Bruins might not even return to the NCAA tournament.

“We’re fighting for our lives,” Coach Jim Harrick said.

They might not be if Trevor Wilson hadn’t sprained his right wrist in a fall Feb. 1 in a 76-75 loss to USC at the Sports Arena.

“They’ve been a little inconsistent all year, which is understandable because by and large they’re a young team, but it’s been a considerable drop since Wilson’s injury,” John Wooden said. “Whether that’s the reason or not, I don’t know. It certainly could be.”

Only 3 1/2 weeks ago, after a 94-80 victory over Oregon State in Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins were 8-1 in the Pac-10 and tied with the Beavers for the conference lead.

Then came the loss to USC, in which Wilson collided in the air with Chris Munk of the Trojans midway through the first half and fell hard to the floor, landing on his right side and rolling his body over his right wrist.

Wilson returned for the second half and ended the game with 19 points, making eight of 11 shots, but he had only two rebounds and made only two of nine free throws after being injured, a harbinger of things to come.

UCLA bounced back to defeat a mediocre DePaul team and an even worse Arizona State team, but then came losses against Arizona, Cal and Stanford.

Meanwhile, Wilson twice reinjured his wrist--he had to leave the Arizona and Stanford games after jamming it--and was forced to alter his style of play.

No longer confident in his outside shot and unable to finish drives with the same flourish, the senior forward has all but eliminated his perimeter game.

“There’s no finesse to my shot,” he said.

His shooting percentage hasn’t dropped much--it was .532 before the injury and is .521 since--but Wilson is spending more time underneath, attempting about three fewer shots a game and drawing more fouls.

His free-throw shooting, never a strong point, has gone from bad to worse. A 58% foul shooter before the injury, he has made only 15 of 43 free throws since.

In the 70-69 loss to Stanford, with a chance to tie the game, Wilson missed one of two free throws with four seconds to play, but Harrick assumed some of the blame for putting the ball in Wilson’s hands in that situation.

“I exposed Trevor the other day and that was probably my fault because I knew what would probably happen,” Harrick said.

Wilson has also had a difficult time gripping the ball firmly and using his right hand to position himself under the basket.

As a result, his production has fallen off considerably.

After averaging 19.1 points and 9.1 rebounds in UCLA’s first 17 games, Wilson has averaged 15 points and 7.2 rebounds in the Bruins’ last six.

Wilson has grown weary of queries about his injury, but Madkins said: “He’s hurting. I’m really concerned about him.” So is Harrick, who said Wednesday that he might keep Wilson out of tonight’s game. When he’s not playing, Wilson wears a brace to immobilize his wrist, but the injury doesn’t seem to be healing.

To make matters worse, nobody has stepped forward to fill the void left by his reduced productivity.

“He wasn’t carrying that much weight,” reserve guard Kevin Williams said of Wilson. “And he’s still playing. We’ve got enough firepower to pick up his slack.”

MacLean, the most logical choice to step up, endured three of his worst shooting games of the season in the losses against USC, Cal and Stanford. The Bruins’ leading scorer was five of 16 from the floor and scored 12 points against USC, was five of 14 and scored 12 against Cal and was three of nine and scored 15 against Stanford.

He averages 19.7 points a game.

“With (Tracy) Murray struggling and with Trevor’s wrist hurting, I really should have come to the forefront,” MacLean said of last week’s games. “I’m one of our main guys and our go-to guy and I didn’t come through with the big shots.”

Murray, moved into the starting lineup last month, has slumped considerably in the last three games, making only 13 of 43 shots and three of 20 three-point attempts. He made 61.3% of his shots, including 13 of 27 three-point attempts, in the previous six games.

Harrick said that UCLA has been impatient offensively and that his younger players have tried too hard to compensate for Wilson’s limitations.

The Bruins’ only problem is their recent shooting slump, Harrick said. They shot 39.2% from the floor against Arizona, 31.2% against Cal and 40.8% against Stanford.

“We just missed some shots.” Harrick said. “Had we made the shots we had, which we had done all year long, we wouldn’t be talking like this.”

But UCLA’s defense has lagged, too. The Bruins have limited opponents to 43.4% shooting, but Cal made 50.9% of its shots against UCLA and Stanford made 52.6%.

Also, the Bruins have gained a reputation as whiners. If they don’t blame the officials for a loss, it seems, they blame an injury or illness. Harrick said Tuesday that MacLean had the flu last week.

Last season, Harrick said that his teams take on the personality of their coach, and last month, he complained so long and vehemently about an official’s call at Stanford that the Pac-10 placed him on probation for the rest of the season. His players, MacLean and Murray especially, pout after seemingly every call that goes against them, with no noticeable admonishment from Harrick.

Still, Harrick said: “I don’t like that at all. It’s basically from just a couple, but I’m going to make sure, by the end of the season, that it’s eliminated. I’m not going to condone that. I have a little bit, but I’m not going to anymore.”

But, said another Pac-10 coach, asking not to be identified: “They make excuses and it makes it easier for them to accept defeat. It’s ‘We were screwed,’ or Trevor’s injury. But there’s no get-tough approach.”

Against Cal, the Bruins came out flat, even though a victory would have put them within a game of the conference lead.

“I could tell in warmups that we weren’t going to come out and play,” MacLean said. “Guys weren’t intent and focused on the game like they should have been.

“I’m not saying everybody and I’m not saying I’m not included. But it just seemed like guys weren’t thinking the game was as important as it was. We just overlooked them and, bam, they hit us.”

And as poorly as they played in losing to Cal in Los Angeles for the first time since 1960, the Bruins were even worse against Stanford, which had not won a regular-season game against the Bruins in Los Angeles since 1952.

“We were so shocked by the loss to Cal that we were kind of in a funk (against Stanford),” MacLean said. “We were horrible. I couldn’t believe how bad we were. I thought we’d come out mad and pick up our intensity. But it went the other way. We never really recovered from (the loss to Cal).”

Williams suggested a players-only meeting this week to discuss the Bruins’ malaise--”It’s the wrong time of the year to be losing,” he said--but none transpired.

Meanwhile, their supporters grow restless. With 3:51 to play Sunday and the Bruins trailing Stanford by 11 points, several thousand fans walked out of Pauley Pavilion.

Now the Bruins could be in danger of missing the NCAA tournament, though some have speculated that because of its name and the strength of its schedule, UCLA could land a berth with as few as 18 victories.

Almost certainly, though, the Bruins will not attain their goals of winning the Pac-10 title and earning a place among the 16 seeded teams in the NCAA tournament.

“They’re in a slump,” said Pete Newell, a former Cal coach. “We’re going to see what kind of character and what kind of unity they have to get out of it.”

The Bruins will rise again, Harrick told reporters this week.

“Don’t write us off with those poison pens,” he said. “We were at one time a very good basketball team, and we certainly can be again. We’re young and a bit immature, but we’re OK.”

Said Madkins: “We’re not dead.”

But neither are they a power, especially with Wilson ailing.

A CHANGE IN THE SEASON A statistical look at Trevor Wilson’s season in the games before and after he was injured in first half of the UCLA’s 76-75 loss to USC Feb. 1 at the Sports Arena. UCLA has lost four of its last six games.

SHOOTING First 17 Games Last 6 games FG 133-250, 53.2% 37-71, 52.1% FT 58-100, 58.0% 16-45, 35.5%

AVERAGES First 17 Games Last 6 games PTS 19.1 15.0 REB 9.1 7.2 ATT 14.7 11.8