Beating Bruins Would Help Irish Feel Better : College basketball: Slow-starting Notre Dame is missing two key players for today’s game against eighth-ranked UCLA.

For its annual grudge match against UCLA today, Notre Dame will limp into Pauley Pavilion with a five-game losing streak, its longest since the 1981-82 season, and two starters on the shelf.

Forward Monty Williams was lost for the season when doctors found a thickened muscle in his heart during a preseason physical. He was advised that his life was at risk if he continued playing.

Guard Tim Singleton injured his back last Saturday in a 98-90 loss to Kentucky and is expected to be out for at least six weeks.

“We were thin to begin with,” Coach Digger Phelps said Friday, “but when you lose two starters and you play the schedule we’re playing, you’re going to have some problems until you adjust. And we will adjust.

“All we need is a good win against somebody to get it going.”

With that, he winked.

It was left unsaid that a victory over the eighth-ranked Bruins would be just what the Irish need to turn their season around. They are 2-5, but four of their losses have come against teams ranked in the top 25, three against teams ranked among the top 10--Arizona, Duke and Indiana.

Notre Dame’s most recent loss, though, was to Butler, 91-77, and as the Irish fell behind last Monday night against a team that lost at Cal State Fullerton two nights earlier, they seemed to lose confidence.

“In the second half, you could see it in their faces,” Butler’s Darin Archbold told reporters. “They looked baffled. They didn’t seem to know what to do.”

Five opponents have looked confused against UCLA, which is unbeaten at this point in the season for the first time in eight years and has yet to be challenged, winning five games by an average of 28 points.

Ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press poll for the first time since the 1983-84 season, the Bruins have made 58.3% of their shots and limited the opposition to 38.2%.

Six Bruins are scoring in double figures, led by forward Don MacLean. He averages 24.4 points and 7.6 rebounds, although, like all of his teammates, he has played fewer than 30 minutes a game.

Forward Tracy Murray is averaging 18 points, and point guard Darrick Martin is averaging 16 points and 7.2 assists.

“Nothing against Trevor (Wilson),” Phelps said of the former Bruin forward, “but they’re more in control now. You never knew what was going to go on when Trevor was in a game. He could play you into a game or play you out of a game. Now, they have more consistency.

“They’re more experienced. A lot of those guys are juniors, like MacLean and Martin, and they’ve got depth. They gained a lot of confidence last season, going to the final 16 (in the NCAA tournament).”

Bruin Notes

This is the 25th consecutive season that UCLA and Notre Dame have played at least once. . . . Irish Coach Digger Phelps, in his 20th season at Notre Dame, is 14-17 against UCLA. . . . Phelps said he was contacted three times by the late Sam Gilbert, the Bruin booster, and asked if he would be interested in coaching at UCLA. Phelps told Gilbert that he was happy at Notre Dame. “I said, ‘Sam, I’d rather beat you,’ ” Phelps said. “That baffled him.”

Phelps, on injured guard Tim Singleton: “He’s one guy who doesn’t show up in the box score, but he makes things happen. Without him, we’re a different basketball team.” . . . Fewer than 100 tickets will go on sale an hour before the game, a UCLA spokesman said Friday.