Alaska Title Is Pure Joy for Bruins : UCLA: Harrick savors the chance to play a more traditional opponent in 89-74 victory over Virginia.

Jim Harrick’s purist heart was aching two games into this UCLA basketball season.

By the time his 12th-ranked Bruins walked onto the court to play 16th-ranked Virginia in the final of the Great Alaska Shootout Monday, Harrick was fidgeting in delighted anticipation: Real basketball, at last.

Enough of those irksome, three-point-mad teams such as UC Irvine and Alaska Anchorage.

In Virginia, UCLA met a team that abides by the conventions of the game--at least as the elite teams view them--and the Bruins came away with an 89-74 victory before 6,287 in a game they broke open far earlier than they had either of their first two.

“It felt back to normal, really,” said Don MacLean, chosen the tournament’s outstanding player and whose 20 points were second to Darrick Martin’s 21 for the Bruins.

“It felt more like we practice. We don’t practice to play against teams that want to score 134 points.”

Unlike the Bruins’ first two games, this one featured restraint, and most important, excellent defense by UCLA.

“Real basketball is where you walk it up and play defense,” Harrick said. “Real basketball is where you average 80 points.”

The other?

“That’s not basketball,” Harrick said the other day. “That’s summertime. You score 100 points and get beat by 34? Where has the purity and the finesse and the beauty of college basketball gone?

UCLA had an easier time against Virginia than it did against either UC Irvine or Alaska Anchorage, going ahead, 40-29, shortly before halftime when Keith Owens tipped in MacLean’s missed shot from the baseline.

The Bruins’ halftime lead was built on balance. MacLean had 10 points, but many of the more critical blows came from elsewhere: Martin and Gerald Madkins pulling up for three-pointers while the Cavaliers worried about MacLean, Martin on a layup off a length-of-the-court drive, Owens with six points off the bench in the first half.

There was also the matter of defense.

UCLA’s task was to slow Bryant Stith, a 6-5 swingman who averaged 29.5 points in the first two games and who has scored in double figures in 33 of his last 34 games.

The assignment fell to sophomore Mitchell Butler, also 6-5, and was shared by Shon Tarver and Madkins. Before the game, UCLA wondered whether its best defense right now is not man-to-man, but zone.

They played both against Virginia, but it was the man-to-man that slowed Stith, who fouled out with three minutes left with 22 points.

“We did a heads-up job, just wanting to deny the ball and if he gets it, not let him get it back if you can,” Harrick said.

Stith, who had 13 at halftime, went scoreless in the second half until only five minutes remained.

“I thought we really played well,” Harrick said.

Forward Kenny Turner stepped up for Virginia, scoring 25 with four three-pointers, but he couldn’t fill the void left by Stith and guard John Crotty, who made one of 11 shots.

If the game felt something like an NCAA tournament game to Harrick, there was a reason: So many of his NCAA tournaments have ended this way, in a game against an Atlantic Coast Conference team.

Last season Duke beat UCLA, stopping the Bruins in the Sweet 16. The year before, it was North Carolina, in the second round.

When Harrick was at Pepperdine, it was the same story. The Waves lost to Maryland in the first round in 1986, to Duke in the first in 1985. In 1983, Pepperdine lost in double overtime in the second round to the N.C. State team that was beginning its improbable run to the NCAA title.

You have to go back to 1982 to find the only time Harrick hasn’t been bumped from the NCAA tournament by an ACC team. Pepperdine lost to Oregon State that year in the second round.

This wasn’t the NCAA tournament--far from it. But UCLA beat its first ACC opponent of the year, and that’s something that makes a traditionalist like Harrick breathe a little easier, knowing the Bruins beat a basketball team, a real one.