Bruins Have a Bad Day : UCLA: Washington is hot, Harrick’s club is cold, and that adds up to an 86-68 victory for the last-place Huskies.

Midway through the second half Sunday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion, UCLA’s Darrick Martin looked around for help as Washington’s Dion Brown threw down a reverse dunk, completing a three-on-one fast break.

None was forthcoming.

Brown’s dunk gave Washington a 65-51 lead and the Huskies, last in the Pacific 10 Conference, continued to pull away from the 16th-ranked Bruins, eventually settling for an 86-68 victory before 4,213.

The loss was the worst of the season for the Bruins.

And stunning?

“It’s hard for me to believe that we could lose to this club,” UCLA’s Gerald Madkins said. “They beat Arizona (two months ago) and they beat some (other) quality clubs, but still . . .

“They’ve got five guys 6-4 running around out there. It’s hard for me to understand how they beat us.”

For one thing, the Huskies outshot UCLA, 61.5% to 42%.

“We could never get any energy going,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said. “We were always a day late defensively. We were always a fraction of a second late. That’s an indication of your mind telling you to go somewhere, but your body not taking you there. Sometimes that happens.

“Sometimes you reach a day where you just don’t have it. We weren’t jumping, didn’t get to the ball.”

UCLA hasn’t played a worse game this season, Harrick said.

“I don’t think we’d had a poor game all year long,” he said. “We just didn’t have any legs. We didn’t have any enthusiasm. We didn’t have any energy. We just didn’t have it. That’s the bottom line.”

How to explain the timing?

Well, despite the loss, which ended a four-game winning streak, the Bruins are 21-8 overall and 9-7 in the Pac-10, virtually certain to gain a bid to the NCAA tournament when the 64-team field is announced Sunday.

Yet, they are out of the running for the Pac-10 title.

Still, Madkins insisted that the Bruins were motivated.

“We wanted to get a (high) seed in the tourney, and finishing out the season strong would help us do that because a few teams right in front of us lost (last week),” he said. “So, the incentive was there. We had our minds made up what we wanted to do, but we couldn’t get it done.”

The Bruins, who hadn’t shot worse against an opponent other than Arizona, fell behind by nine points in the first half, making only one shot during a 7 1/2-minute stretch as Washington outscored them, 17-4.

By halftime, though, they cut their deficit to 39-34.

“We had the momentum,” Madkins said, noting that the Bruins overcame a nine-point halftime deficit Thursday night in a 99-91 victory over Washington State. “But then they got a lot of easy baskets at the start of the second half (and) blew the lead out to (55-40). From then on, it was just us scrapping, trying to get it under 10, and we could never do that.”

Brown, a senior forward from Crenshaw High, celebrated his Seattle swan song by scoring 28 points, making 11 of 14 shots, including several spectacular dunks. Brown also led the Huskies with seven rebounds and six assists as Washington (14-12, 5-11) ended an eight-game losing streak against UCLA.

Brent Merritt scored 19 points and Mike Hayward had 15 for the Huskies, who worked patiently for high-percentage shots and usually converted, enjoying their best shooting game of the season against a Pac-10 foe.

“When a team runs the ball down to where they have to shoot (to beat the 45-second shot clock), the nights when they make the shots, they look like a million dollars,” Harrick said.

That was the case against the Bruins’ lethargic defense.

Bruin Notes

Washington kept the ball from UCLA’s Don MacLean, who attempted a season-low eight shots, made four and scored 16 points. Against Washington State, MacLean scored 33, making 12 of 19 shots. “The guards did a great job of covering down,” Mike Hayward said. “Every time he got the ball, we had people around him.” . . . Tracy Murray led UCLA with 24 points and nine rebounds. . . . Darrick Martin scored seven points, making two of 11 shots, after getting a career-high 31 against Washington State.

UCLA’s Pac-10 road record in three seasons under Jim Harrick is 13-14 . . . . Said Harrick: “I really believe in my heart that this is the toughest conference in the country, from top to bottom. The fact that no team in the league has swept (a conference trip) is a tribute to the players and coaches in our league.” . . . Washington entered the week as the worst shooting team in the Pac-10.

Were the Bruins preoccupied? “There’s so much talk about the (NCAA) tournament on television and I’m sure, subconsciously, a lot of us are thinking about that,” Harrick said. “But that’s just an excuse. We just flat-out got beat. We just weren’t ever in the game.”