Beavers’ Effort First-Rate, but No. 2 Bruins Win, 87-81 : College basketball: Undermanned Oregon State uses walk-on guard the entire game and has three players foul out before finally losing in overtime.

The nation’s second-ranked team kept its perfect record intact Saturday against a team that has won only two of its last 18 road games, used a 5-foot-9 walk-on point guard for the entire game and played without two of its best players, one of whom was still hospitalized after suffering a stroke a little more than 24 hours before the opening tip.

But UCLA needed overtime to secure an 87-81 victory over Oregon State, which was further handicapped when three of its players fouled out.

“They came in here and played with a purpose and played hard,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said of the Beavers, whose determined effort couldn’t keep the Bruins from improving to 12-0 overall and 4-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference. “They outplayed us. They outhustled us.”

Oregon State (9-8, 1-3) seemed to have every reason to be distracted after guard Earnest Killum, a sophomore from Lynwood High, was found semi-conscious Friday at the team’s Los Angeles hotel, the victim of a “very significant stroke,” according to team physician Richard Cronk.

Only two weeks ago, the Beavers lost their leading scorer and rebounder, Chad Scott, who was declared academically ineligible.

But after a Pauley Pavilion crowd of 11,921 observed a moment of silence for Killum only a few minutes before the start of the game, the Bruins seemed more distracted than the undermanned Beavers.

Oregon State opened an 8-0 lead as UCLA made turnovers in its first three possessions and maintained its advantage for almost 30 minutes.

“We looked a little bit out of snyc,” Harrick said. “We didn’t handle the ball very well. It was very (uncharacteristic) of some of the things we’ve been doing.

“We just didn’t play as well as you’d like to play, but we had enough to win the game, and that’s what counts.”

A 10-0 run by the Bruins put the Beavers down by 52-49 with 9:22 left in regulation, and UCLA’s lead was 68-62 with 4:08 left, but Oregon State wouldn’t quit. The Beavers put together an 8-0 run before center Scott Haskin, who made seven of 10 shots and led Oregon State with 19 points, fouled out while trying to defend Don MacLean in the post with 1:45 remaining.

MacLean made two free throws to pull the Bruins even at 70-70, then made two more with 50 seconds left to give UCLA a 72-70 lead.

Fearing that he wouldn’t have enough players left to win in overtime--”To be honest, I didn’t think we had a prayer,” he would say later--Oregon State Coach Jim Anderson ordered a three-point shot.

“We were hoping that one last shot would bail us out,” Anderson said. “If it didn’t, I felt that (foul trouble) would catch up to us.”

But when point guard Pat Strickland, a walk-on, went up for a three-pointer from the right wing, Tyus Edney deflected the shot. The ball flew into the post to Oregon State’s Karl Anderson, who was fouled by Tracy Murray.

Anderson’s free throws tied the game with 11 seconds left.

At the other end, an Edney pass was defelected into the hands of Oregon State’s Charles McKinney, who dribbled out the clock.

“I asked him when he came to the huddle, ‘Did you think we were ahead?’ ” Anderson said. “He said, ‘No, I just didn’t want to turn the ball over.’ ”

It was on to overtime.

UCLA opened a two-point lead before two more Oregon State players--Carl Anderson and Kareem Anderson--fouled out.

The Bruins finally put the Beavers away when MacLean, five for 19 from that distance in his UCLA career, made a three-point shot from the right wing to give UCLA an 80-75 lead with 1:31 left in overtime.

Soon, an emotional day for the Beavers had finally ended.

“It was very difficult,” Coach Anderson said. “Of course, it was in the backs of all our minds what happened.”

Their effort hardly showed it.

Bruin Notes

Don MacLean led UCLA with 31 points and 12 rebounds, increasing his average in seven games against Oregon State to 27.9 points. MacLean has never scored less than 25 points against the Beavers. . . . Tracy Murray had seven steals to equal a school record. . . . The last time UCLA had a better start was in the 1973-74 season, when it took a 13-0 record and 88-game winning streak to Notre Dame and lost, 71-70.

Team physician Gerald Finerman said that Ed O’Bannon, who played seven minutes, could be worked into the regular rotation within three or four weeks if the swelling in his surgically repaired left knee remains minimal. “We really are going on the conservative side because we’d rather it not swell way up and than have to sit him down completely,” Finerman said.

Gerald Madkins said this week that he doesn’t expect to regain the starting position he relinguished to Darrick Martin when he broke his left hand last month. Said Jim Harrick, who used Madkins for 30 minutes and Martin for 20 against Oregon State: “I’ll make that decision next weekend.”