The Tip-Off Goes to UCLA : College basketball: Murray’s 21 points power 11th-ranked Bruins past second-ranked Indiana, 87-72.

UCLA’s new all-for-one, one-for-all approach to basketball was put to an early test Friday night when the Bruins found themselves trailing second-ranked Indiana by 11 points in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic.

The 11th-ranked Bruins pulled together and beat the Hoosiers, 87-72, before a sellout crowd of 8,900 at the Springfield Civic Center.

“Last year, we might have looked up and said, ‘Oh, well, here we go again,’ and expected to get blown out,” guard Darrick Martin said. “Tonight, I don’t think anybody even looked up at the scoreboard.”

They were too busy trying to prove a point.

In their previous 48 hours in the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Bruins had been led to believe that they should consider themselves fortunate merely to be involved in a game against Bob Knight, Indiana’s coach and a Hall of Fame inductee last May.

“It was unreal,” guard Gerald Madkins said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about the people of Springfield, but it was incredible. Red Auerbach said, ‘UCLA is lucky to be playing Indiana early in the season because they get better every day.’

“Crap like that. We’re a doggone good basketball team. We have some great athletes on our team. We go to a banquet, (Indiana) doesn’t show. We had to listen to four speakers rave over their guys. (Knight) comes late and it was like God had just walked into the room.

“Even before the game, we walk into the elevator and a guy says, ‘You guys worried about Bob Knight?’ I said, ‘He doesn’t play basketball. Does Bob Knight have a jersey?’

“Come on, is he God? I mean, he’s a great coach. I have the utmost respect for the man, but give us some credit, too.

“It was like being in Tucson.”

Except that UCLA won.

The Bruins, upset by the lack of respect, came out antsy and too eager, perhaps, to show up the local citizenry.

They fell behind, 25-14.

But then came the blitz.

Going to a smaller lineup at the suggestion of assistant Steve Lavin, who knew Indiana’s personnel after spending the last three seasons as an assistant at Purdue, UCLA Coach Jim Harrick inserted Martin and Mitchell Butler, spread the offense and watched the Bruins take off.

They outscored the Hoosiers, 34-11, the rest of the half, putting together runs of 7-0, 6-0, 10-0 and 6-0 again to take a 48-36 lead.

A stern Knight trailed his players off the floor at halftime.

The second half opened with an 9-2 run by UCLA, increasing the Bruins’ lead to 19 points and causing Knight to clench his jaw ever tighter.

After that, the Bruins never led by fewer than 11 points the rest of the way and finished with a field goal percentage of 55.9.

“I felt that UCLA was by far the better team,” Knight said. “They did a much better job at each end of the floor.

“They were far smarter and a much tougher team.”

Five Bruins scored in double figures, led by forward Tracy Murray, who was a unanimous choice as the game’s most outstanding player after finishing with a game-high 21 points and seven rebounds.

Forward Don MacLean had 18 points and nine rebounds in only 24 minutes. Butler scored 14 points, Shon Tarver scored 10 in his first start and Martin, used as a reserve for the first time since early in his freshman season, had 10 points and five assists in 25 minutes.

Rodney Zimmerman, in his first start at center, had nine points and nine rebounds and Madkins played a pivotal defensive role, harassing Indiana’s best player, Calbert Chaeney, into a miserable night.

Chaeney scored eight points, making two of nine shots.

When it ended, Knight walked off quickly, not bothering to stick around for the awards ceremony that followed the game.

Bruin Notes

Upset earlier this week when told that he would not open the season as a starter, as he had been in UCLA’s previous 87 games, Darrick Martin indicated Friday that he had accepted his fate. “I kind of just have to go with it right now,” Martin said. “He (Jim Harrick) is the coach. I’m not going to sit here and try to bump heads with him. I don’t think that would do either one of us any good.” . . . Martin’s father, Jesse, angrily approached assistant coach Brad Holland after the Bruins’ 112-50 exhibition victory over Trenchin of Czechoslovakia Tuesday night at Pauley Pavilion. “I understand,” Holland said. “That’s his flesh and blood out there.”

UCLA has landed two players so far during the early signing period: Ike Nwankwo, a 6-foot-10 center-forward from Houston, and Marquis Burns, a 6-3 guard from Reseda High. . . . UCLA forward Steve Elkind, a walk-on from Sharon, Mass., underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and will be sidelined for four to six weeks.