UCLA Skid Extended to Five Games : College basketball: Bruins waste seven-point lead in second half and lose at Oregon State, 83-74. It’s their worst slump in 42 years.

UCLA’s Forgettable February ended Saturday before 10,400 in Gill Coliseum, where a banner unfurled before the game by Oregon State students spelled out what has become painfully obvious to the Bruins:

“U

“Can

“Lose

“Again.”

An 83-74 loss to Oregon State was UCLA’s fifth in a row and sixth in its last seven Pacific 10 Conference games. The Bruins are 16-9 overall and fifth in the conference at 9-6.

UCLA hadn’t lost five consecutive games since the 1947-48 season, when it lost six in a row and was 12-13 under Coach Wilbur Johns. Johns was replaced before the next season by a little-known coach from Indiana, John Wooden.

After taking a seven-point lead in the second half, the Bruins went scoreless for almost eight minutes.

The capacity crowd had come to see Gary Payton’s final home game and celebrate a brilliant career, but for the first 27 1/2 minutes, the All-American guard was overshadowed by UCLA’s Don MacLean.

With 12:33 left, UCLA led, 64-57. MacLean had scored 28 of his game-high 32 points and Payton, who missed 10 consecutive shots at one point, had not scored in the second half.

“We were playing well,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said.

But that soon changed.

The Bruins missed their next eight shots, made four turnovers and were outscored, 13-0, by the Beavers, who used the momentum to improve to 21-4 and 14-2 in the Pac-10.

And the Bruins stopped going to MacLean, to the consternation of Harrick.

“Run the offense,” Harrick screamed at Trevor Wilson after the Bruin forward drove around a defender but stepped over the baseline.

Wilson was quickly replaced.

Then, when point guard Darrick Martin missed an off-balance, running jump shot in the lane, Harrick stared him down.

Martin was pulled, too.

“When the game’s on the line, I want to run our offense and not go one-one-one,” Harrick said.

MacLean, who ended the Bruins’ drought by making a jump shot off an inbounds play, touched the ball only twice in the last 12 1/2 minutes and Payton eventually took over, scoring 12 of the Beavers’ last 15 points.

“I was scoring pretty easily on these guys today,” said MacLean, who followed a 31-point game at Oregon Thursday night by making 11 of 15 shots and all 10 of his free throws. “I wish I’d gotten the ball more down the stretch, but it’s nobody’s fault. I just didn’t get it.”

Harrick might not agree.

He said the Beavers did nothing special to shut down MacLean.

Who was guarding him?

“I don’t even know,” MacLean said. “I had no trouble scoring all day long, so I probably should have made myself more available to get the ball. It was probably my fault more than anybody else’s.”

Oregon State took a 24-12 lead, outscoring the Bruins, 18-6, and Harrick was unable to mask his frustration.

His face reddened and he screamed at Martin.

Martin yelled back.

Enraged again minutes later, Harrick shouted at Wilson.

Wilson shouted back.

Finally, kneeling in front of the Bruin bench, Harrick stared down at the floor and screamed into the wood.

No response.

Behind MacLean, who made six of eight shots and scored 18 points in the first half, UCLA rallied to cut its deficit to 40-39 at halftime.

In its 13-0 run, Oregon State’s scoring was distributed among five players, including Payton, whose jump shot from the lane with 5:59 left ended his 0-for-10 shooting drought and gave the Beavers a 70-64 lead.

Payton then scored the Beavers’ next eight points, six on a pair of three-point plays, as Oregon State maintained its advantage.

“Normal game, normal day,” said Payton, who made seven of 18 shots. “I just did what I had to do. At one point, I was struggling. What I had to do was settle down and get my game going. And that’s what I did.”

Bruin Notes

Oregon State made 58.3% of its shots in the second half, 47.5% overall and was the fifth consecutive team to outshoot UCLA. The Bruins, who shot 43.9%, were outshot only three times in their first 20 games. . . . Trevor Wilson took 15 rebounds, one short of a career high, in 29 minutes. . . . Will Brantley, who missed two games with a sprained ankle, came off the bench and scored 14 points in 30 minutes for Oregon State, making nine of 11 shots.

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, on the Bruins’ chances of making the NCAA tournament: “I’m not worried about that. Yeah, I am. I’d like to go. But I worry about our team playing well and I’m pleased with the way we played this weekend. We didn’t win, but at least we played with intensity.” . . . Said Oregon State Coach Jim Anderson of the Bruins: “I know they’re a good enough team to play in the NCAA (tournament). They have the talent and the ability to be among the top 64 teams, without a doubt.”

UCLA was 5-7 on the road this season and is 12-13 on the road in two seasons under Harrick. . . . Oregon State has won nine of its last 11 games against UCLA in Corvallis. . . . On the two-game trip: Don MacLean made 23 of 38 shots, 17 of 18 free throws, scored 63 points and took 23 rebounds; Wilson made 10 of 23 shots, two of five free throws, scored 22 points and took 21 rebounds. . . . Tracy Murray had five points, the first time in 11 games as UCLA’s starting center that he has failed to reach double figures. . . . At this point last season, UCLA was 18-7 overall and 12-4 in the Pac-10.