COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURMAMENT : UCLA Plays Game to Erase the Past

And so, let’s go. Let’s get this first game over with.

Bring on the Pittsburgh School of Accountancy.

That was the original name of Robert Morris College when it was founded 70 years ago, before being renamed in honor of a Revolutionary War-era financier.

But UCLA doesn’t much care which school’s basketball team it plays.

UCLA simply wants to be UCLA.

Free of any pressure to be like the UCLA of yesteryear.

Free of any expectation to defeat anybody and everybody that stands in UCLA’s way.

Free of any need to win a first-round game in the NCAA tournament simply to dispel doubts about its ability to win when it really counts.

Free of doubters.

That’s the word that crossed the Bruin players’ lips here Thursday--doubters.

Doubters who believe Robert Morris might do to UCLA what another band of Pennsylvanians did in the NCAA regionals a year ago.

Or, to quote Gerald Madkins, the UCLA captain: “The Penn State fiasco.”

Madkins senses a new attitude toward his team because of that.

“I definitely feel there are doubters where it comes to us,” Madkins said, clearly agitated by it. “They question our heart, they question our integrity, they question our intellect. It’s really unfair.”

Don MacLean, the UCLA scoring champion, ran a hand through his hair with a pained expression and said: “All year long, because of what happened with Penn State, people have placed so much emphasis on the tournament.

“We feel there’s still some doubters out there with regard to us.”

As though UCLA, once the object of the greatest respect, now gets an undue amount of disrespect.

“Like, once we lost to Notre Dame, Indiana and all these other teams jumped over us in the rankings, even if we’d already beaten them,” MacLean said.

Doubters.

People who believe a Penn State or a Robert Morris should be a pushover for a UCLA, simply by virtue of UCLA being UCLA.

Said Jim Harrick, the coach, with another tournament at hand:

“UCLA is the kind of place where when you win five national championships, you’re just five short.”

He was kidding.

Sort of.

To most of the guys from Robert Morris, UCLA is a good basketball team that gets its games on TV more often than they do, nothing more.

“You turn on the Game of the Week, there they are. You turn on (ESPN) SportsCenter, there’s their highlights,” senior forward Joe Falletta said. “We’ve been on TV one time, I think. The only time we see our scores is in the paper.

“Usually in the small type.”

Yes, the Colonials do know of UCLA’s heritage.

Some of them, anyway.

“I just hope they’re too young,” Coach Jarrett Durham said. “I don’t think some of these guys were born then.”

Falletta, for example, was born in 1971, two months before UCLA went like a buzz saw through Brigham Young, Cal State Long Beach, Kansas and Villanova for another notch on John Wooden’s belt.

UCLA winning basketball championships wasn’t an important part of Falletta’s childhood. He was more excited by the time he struck out Pete Rose Jr.

Robert Morris is as proud of being Robert Morris as UCLA is of being UCLA.

Today it is a school populated by certified public accountants of the future and basketball players who are counting on UCLA to behave like any other basketball team.

They have respect, sure.

They understand that UCLA is probably the better team.

But Penn State understood that, too.

“Basically, Penn State played a perfect game,” Falletta said. “And Robert Morris has to do the same thing. Play a flawless game.”

And if it does?

Another fiasco.

Harrick sat poolside here Thursday and tried to relax. He reminded himself and anybody listening of the differences between last season’s team and this one. How that team “wasn’t mentally a strong club.” How that team couldn’t overcome the foul troubles of a key player.

In his heart, he knows that most people would act reasonably, rationally, should UCLA lose. That the true-blue booster simply wants a successful program that graduates players and avoids NCAA investigations.

“But then there are the unrealistic people,” Harrick said.

The ones who expect UCLA to win because it’s UCLA.

The ones who turn radio call-in shows or a newspaper letters-to-the-editor page into a dart board with the UCLA coach’s picture on it.

“To this day, with some people, the only question that’s ever asked is: ‘How big you gonna win?’ ” Harrick said.

UCLA tonight doesn’t want to win big.

All UCLA wants is a big win.