Bruins Come Close, but the Streak Lives : Basketball: Murray gives UCLA the lead, but Arizona counters in closing seconds to win 56th in a row at home.

Almost four years and a little less than 56 games after it started, Arizona’s home-court winning streak hung in the balance Saturday when UCLA sophomore Tracy Murray made a three-point shot to give the Bruins a one-point lead with 28 seconds left.

Loud cursing could be heard from a sellout crowd of 13,864 in the McKale Center.

“I thought we had it won,” a tearful Murray said later.

So did teammate Gerald Madkins.

“I smelled it, I smelled it,” Madkins said. “It was right there. I was thinking, ‘Finally, after four years, we got one.’ But they took it right away from us. One of my buddies, too. I owe him.”

Madkins referred to Arizona center Sean Rooks, whose leaning jump hook from the lane with four seconds left gave the Wildcats a 78-77 lead in an 82-77 victory that preserved the nation’s longest home winning streak.

After Rooks’ shot, UCLA never got another chance because it called time out immediately, though it had no timeouts left.

That’s a technical foul.

Senior guard Matt Muehlebach, who played almost a perfect game for Arizona, then made two free throws; and forward Brian Williams, taking an inbounds pass from Chris Mills, threw down a thunderous dunk at the buzzer.

“That didn’t beat us,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said of the technical foul, which may have been the Bruins’ only hope. It put three seconds on the clock, and if the Bruins had been able to steal the inbounds pass, they could have been in position to attempt a decent shot.

If UCLA hadn’t called time, could the Bruins have scored?

“Maybe,” Harrick said. “If they hadn’t pressured us, we could have thrown one up from a long way, but it would have been a prayer.”

Rooks’ shot was the killer.

“I thought it was going to be hard for them to score,” UCLA’s Darrick Martin said of the Wildcats, who brought the ball up court after Murray’s shot and attacked UCLA’s man-to-man defense without calling time out. “We had the upper hand, but they had a lot of time and they were patient.”

Guard Matt Othick fed the ball inside to Rooks, a 6-foot-11 junior from Fontana who was triple-teamed as the clock ran down.

“I pump-faked and they flew,” Rooks said of his primary defender, Keith Owens, and of Murray and Martin, who converged to help out. “I just tried to make the best move I could.

“Once I saw they’d (jumped), I just hit the jump hook.”

It made a winner of the sixth-ranked Wildcats, who improved to 13-2 overall and 3-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference. They haven’t lost at home since March 14, 1987, when Texas El Paso beat them in overtime, 98-91.

UCLA is 13-2 and 2-1.

Despite 40.9% shooting and the overall brilliance of Muehlebach, the seventh-ranked Bruins almost equaled the 14-1 start of their 1974-75 team, which won the national championship.

Arizona’s only senior, Muehlebach made all six of his shots, including five three-point attempts, scored 19 points and had 11 assists.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a game like that,” said Muehlebach, who missed all six of his three-point attempts in Arizona’s previous three games and had made only 24.4% of his three-point shots this season.

Williams scored 18 points, Rooks had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Othick scored 11 points for Arizona, which shot 52.5%.

Murray led UCLA with 25 points, making a career-high five of 10 three-point shots and 10 of 21 overall, and Don MacLean scored 22, making 10 of 18 shots despite playing on a sprained right ankle.

MacLean was noticeably tired in the second half, when he had only one of his eight rebounds and three of his season-high five turnovers. He said that he was about “55 to 60% effective” after halftime.

A three-point basket was taken away when he was called for traveling with 4:06 left, and he missed a 17-foot shot with 40 seconds left and UCLA trailing, 76-74, in a game that was close throughout.

Muehlebach took the rebound, but fumbled it out of bounds.

Unable to bring the ball inbounds, Owens called for time out, which was the Bruins’ last.

Harrick called a play for Murray, who took a pass from MacLean in the left corner and fired the shot that almost ended the streak.

But Arizona wasn’t finished.

The end was disappointing for UCLA, but not discouraging.

“For the most part, we got done what we wanted to get done,” Madkins said. “Then they hit a big shot. They weren’t supposed to roll over and die. But they’ve still got to come to L.A.”

The rematch will be played Feb. 10 at Pauley Pavilion.

Bruin Notes

Until the end, neither team led by more than four points in the second half. . . . Matt Muehlebach equaled a Pac-10 record by making all five of his three-point attempts. . . . In its first 13 games, Arizona made 30.2% of its three-point shots, the worst percentage in the Pac-10, but the Wildcats made eight of 11 against USC Thursday night and eight of 14 against UCLA. . . . UCLA made only 45.8% of its shots against Iowa last month, its previous worst shooting game and its only other loss.

In UCLA’s two losses, freshman Shon Tarver has made one of seven shots and scored two points. He played 15 minutes against Arizona, missing both of his shots and making three turnovers. . . . In the games on this trip, including Thursday night’s win at Arizona State, UCLA forward Mitchell Butler scored nine points and had two rebounds in 39 minutes.

Arizona players wore patches on their jerseys in honor of Martin Luther King.