Sara Wilson Weathers a Brief Return : Women’s basketball: Former Hart All-American, now starting at Oregon, does not miss the Southern California climate.

Sara Wilson loves playing basketball at Oregon. Loves the weather. Loves the scenery. Loves the program. Loves the coach.

Get the idea?

“I’ve always said that she could go to Death Valley U. and feel at home,” said Pam Walker, Wilson’s former coach at Hart High. “She really found her niche in Oregon.”

Wilson is not particularly enamored of Los Angeles these days, and recalls in particular her reacquaintance with a local four-letter word--smog--upon her recent return to the area to participate in the women’s basketball competition of the L. A. Olympic Festival.

As she drove down the Sepulveda Pass into the San Fernando Valley, all she saw through the chocolate-milk haze was urban sprawl and dry heat.

“Everything up there’s perfect,” she said. “It’s refreshing. Everything’s green.”

About the only color in evidence at UCLA, site of the Festival basketball competition, was atop the decorative azalea bushes that were placed in a planter at the end of each team bench. Of course, azaleas are poisonous, which sort of goes hand in hand with Wilson’s feelings about the Southland these days.

The West team, for whom Wilson started at center, didn’t exactly flourish in the four-team tournament. After dropping its first three games, the West defeated the East, 69-60, at Pauley Pavilion on Tuesday to salvage the bronze medal.

Wilson, a 6-foot, 3-inch freshman from Valencia, averaged six points and 4.5 rebounds over four tournament games against some of the best age-group talent in the nation. In Festival basketball, only players who in the spring completed their senior year of high school or freshman season at college are eligible.

Wilson, a third-team Parade magazine All-American at Hart High in 1990, managed to bang elbows with some rather physical competition. What’s more, she enjoyed it.

“I like the physical type of play,” she said. “It was definitely a more physical brand of play than we see in the Pac-10.

“Some of the scrimmages we had (early last week), before we had real refs, were really something.”

At Hart, Wilson helped lead the Indians to a Southern Section 5-A Division title as a senior and averaged 18 points and 11.3 rebounds. It didn’t take long for her to make the transition to college ball.

She started at center last fall for the Ducks and averaged 6.8 points and 4.9 rebounds. She shot a team-high 51.4% from the field.

“She’s added a lot of upper-body strength this year,” Walker said. “She’s a much stronger inside player.”

Possibly her best offensive performance at Oregon came in a conference loss to UCLA, the school for whom Walker now serves as an assistant. Wilson, who turned 18 in March, scored 24 points and added 14 rebounds. “That game, I think was unconscious,” said Wilson, who as a junior was selected The Times Valley girls’ player of the year. “It was one of those times where everything went right.”

It isn’t unusual when the individual scoring line isn’t as spectacular in the Festival. Under tournament rules, all 12 players on the roster must see court time in each game. Players are given a week of scrimmages to become acclimated to one another’s style.

Wilson often backed her way toward the basket, raised her hand to signal that she was open, and . . . waited for the pass that never came. She attempted just 15 shots in the four games, making six.

“It seems like sometimes, it depends on which way the ball bounces and whether you can get your hands on it,” she said. “Being in the post, they don’t really know when you want the ball and where.”

Opposing centers averaged a composite 11.3 points per game. Wilson and fellow West center Ingrid Dixson of West Covina averaged 8.5.

“She was asked to do a lot more defensively,” Walker said. “She has to help out when the guards get burned.”

The Olympic flame nearly torched the West, which managed to stave off a sweep by defeating the East in the bronze-medal game after falling, 70-54, to East in the second game of the tournament. In a 71-57 loss to South in the opener, West blew a 14-point first-half lead. “That’s embarrassing,” Wilson said. “We didn’t play with enough heart. It felt so good to finally come out (Tuesday) and play like a team.”

Even if the sky here is the same color as the medal she won.