No-Sweat Workout for Bruins

At Oral Roberts University, which was named for a television evangelist, students are encouraged to “expect a miracle.”

But the Titans’ undermanned basketball team didn’t get one against UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night.

UCLA opened the game with a 24-4 run, went on to make a season-high 62.5% of its shots and overpowered the Titans, 113-62, before 6,289 to run its record to 7-0.

“It was a good workout for us,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said after the Bruins equaled their largest margin of victory since 1983.

Everyone on the roster had a hand in the victory as the Bruins sent Oral Roberts to its 10th loss in 13 games.

Sophomore guard Shon Tarver led the Bruins with a personal-best 29 points, making 12 of 14 shots. Tracy Murray scored 19 points, making six of nine shots, and Don MacLean scored 17, making eight of 12.

Reserve Mitchell Butler scored 15 points, making six of nine shots, and reserve guard Tyus Edney had 10 points and seven assists in 22 minutes. Center Rodney Zimmerman had a personal-best 10 rebounds.

Senior guard Darrick Martin added 10 assists and made only two turnovers in the absence of Gerald Madkins, who is sidelined because of a broken hand.

Reserve center Mike Lanier, a 7-foot-6 transfer from Hardin-Simmons whose every appearance at Pauley is greeted with cheers from the student section, scored a season-high nine points. Jiri Zidek, a 7-0 freshman reserve from Prague, Czechoslovakia, who had failed to score or take a rebound during 11 minutes of action in the Bruins’ first six games, had nine points and seven rebounds.

“We’re going to have many, many tough games when we get into January,” Harrick said. “Certainly, it wasn’t tough tonight, but it was good to let everybody play and get everybody in the flow.

“It really helps you in practice to get everybody into a game like this. It really helps your spirit to get in there and score.”

Oral Roberts, 29-6 at the NAIA level last season, has struggled in its return to Division I after a two-year absence.

The Titans were 0-5 on a trip West the week before Christmas, losing two games in a tournament at Brigham Young and then losing by 25 points at Weber State, 25 at Oregon State and 32 at Oregon.

The Titans (3-10), whose schedule has included only one home game, missed 15 of their first 16 shots. After Thompson scored on a follow shot to give them a 2-0 lead in the first minute, they missed 14 in a row.

UCLA, meanwhile, made nine of its first 12, scoring 22 consecutive points as Oral Roberts went almost six minutes without a field goal.

By halftime, the Bruins’ lead was 57-32 and they had outshot the Titans, 66.7% to 31%, and outrebounded them, 28-15.

In the second half, UCLA led by as many as 56 points.

Bruin Notes

Attendance is down at Pauley Pavilion, where UCLA has drawn an average of 8,174 in five games despite a 7-0 start. Bruin officials, however, expect attendance to pick up after Jan. 1, with each of UCLA’s 11 remaining home games drawing at least 11,000. Games against Duke, Arizona and USC already are sold out, a UCLA spokesman said. Last season, in 17 home games, the Bruins drew an average of 10,023, their highest since 1986-87, when they averaged 10,584 while winning their last Pac-10 championship.

In three games as a starter, Darrick Martin has 26 assists and only two turnovers. . . . Oral Roberts shot 32.1% and was outrebounded, 58-34. . . . UCLA was outrebounded by its two Big West Conference opponents, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton, but has outrebounded everybody else. . . . Fullerton, which shot 50%, is the only team that has made more than 48% of its shots against UCLA, and the only team that has outshot the Bruins.