COLLEGE BASKETBALL NCAA TOURNAMENT PAIRINGS : UCLA Can Give a History Lesson : Bruins: First-round opponent is Penn State, which last was in the tournament in 1965.

UCLA, owner of the most celebrated history in college basketball, will open the 1991 NCAA tournament against a team that last was invited to compete for the national championship more than a generation ago.

Penn State, the Bruins’ first-round opponent Friday in the Carrier Dome at Syracuse, N.Y., won the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament last week to gain its first bid to the NCAA tournament since 1965.

“I don’t know that I could name one guy on their team,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said of the Nittany Lions.

That was before he watched them on tape Sunday night.

What Harrick saw was a team that finished in a five-way tie for third place in the Atlantic 10, ending the regular season with a 92-70 loss to Rutgers--the conference champion--before winning the conference tournament.

Penn State improved to 20-10 Thursday night when it defeated George Washington, 81-75, in the tournament final at State College, Pa.

The Nittany Lions have four starters back from last season, when they were 25-9 and placed third in the National Invitation Tournament, but they lost the best player from that team, 6-foot-9 center Ed Fogell.

“We’re a team that’s not overly athletic and not very big,” said Coach Bruce Parkhill, whose team was 10-8 in its last season in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The Nittany Lions will compete as an independent next season before joining the Big Ten in the 1992-93 season.

Parkhill described Penn State as a “blue-collar” team.

“We don’t have any high school All-Americans,” he said.

Penn State averages about 74 points, UCLA about 93.

The Nittany Lions’ leading scorer is DeRon Hayes, a 6-foot-6 sophomore forward who is averaging 15 points. Hayes, who played in the Olympic Festival last summer, was the freshman of the year in the Atlantic 10 last season after missing his true freshman season because of a broken foot.

Freddie Barnes, a 6-foot junior point guard, is averaging 12.7 points and was the most valuable player in the Atlantic 10 tournament, scoring 15 points in the Lions’ 52-50 upset victory over Temple in the semifinals and 18 in the final against George Washington, a winner over Stanford this season.

James Barnes, a 6-7 senior forward and no relation to Freddie, is averaging 12.6 points and 7.4 rebounds.

He scored a game-high 22 points against George Washington.

Harrick was pleased with UCLA’s placement as the No. 4 seeded team in the East Regional. If they beat No. 13 Penn State, the Bruins (23-8) would play No. 5 Mississippi State (20-8) or No. 12 Eastern Michigan (23-6).

UCLA has been sent East in each of Harrick’s three seasons.

“I think anybody would like to stay away from UNLV--if you want to have a chance to get to Indianapolis,” Harrick said, referring to the defending national champion and the site of this season’s Final Four.

He said the Bruins were eager to start the tournament.

“When you’ve been in a tough league, it’s kind of refreshing to get out into the tournament and play, maybe even cut loose a little bit,” Harrick said. “I think we’ll rise up and play well. We’ve probably been waiting on this for a couple of weeks. When you don’t have a (conference) tournament, it’s hard to keep that emotional edge.

“Everybody else has been playing with great emotion (in conference tournaments). Maybe we’ve stored up some.”

* PEPPERDINE: Waves are not awed at playing Big East champion Seton Hall. C10.