COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : UCLA: From Sweet to Elite : West Regional: Bruins beat New Mexico State, 85-78, to advance to round-of-eight game against Indiana.

For a team that has reached the round of eight in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1980, UCLA still doesn’t command much respect, even from its vanquished opponents.

After the Bruins beat New Mexico State, 85-78, in the semifinals of the West Regional Thursday night before 15,914 in the Pit, the Aggies seemed almost surprised by their fate.

UCLA (28-4) opened a 21-point lead late in the first half, shot 65.4% while forcing 12 turnovers, weathered an early second-half run by the 12th-seeded Aggies and coasted in.

“They played a lot harder than I think they’ve played in a lot of games,” Aggie center Chris Hickman said. “If anybody wants to watch that film again, they’ll see that UCLA was up for the Aggies.

“They didn’t underestimate anything that we had.”

Had he expected less?

“I thought they might overlook us and look for Indiana,” Hickman said. “But I don’t think they did. They understood that we can play and gave us a lot of respect.

“They played harder than on any of the game tape that we looked at. In the defense we saw on film, they didn’t cover anybody. They were slow to the ball. They weren’t like that (against New Mexico State).”

UCLA’s Gerald Madkins found Hickman’s remarks incredulous.

“I get so tired of hearing crazy stuff like that,” Madkins said. “They’re going to come out and assume we’re not going to play hard in the biggest game of the year? That’s their problem.”

UCLA knew what was on the line and played accordingly.

In Saturday’s West Regional final, the top-seeded Bruins will play second-seeded Indiana (26-6) in a rematch of the season opener, which was won by UCLA, 87-72, last Nov. 15 in the Tip-Off Classic at Springfield, Mass.

And New Mexico State, which finished at 25-8?

“They can take their (loss) and go back to Las Cruces,” UCLA’s Don MacLean said. “They didn’t belong here anyway.”

The Aggies, with only one starter back from last season, finished third in the Big West Conference regular-season race behind Nevada Las Vegas and UC Santa Barbara, losing six of 18 conference games.

They barely survived the Big West tournament, overcoming a seven-point deficit in the last 90 seconds and beating Fresno State in overtime in the quarterfinals, then defeating Pacific by one point in the final.

After upsetting fifth-seeded DePaul and beating Southwestern Louisiana, New Mexico State was the lowest-seeded team remaining.

“We probably don’t look too talented on film,” Hickman said before the game, “but once you get on the floor with us, there are very few teams that play with more heart than we do. I can’t say that I see a lot of teams in the entire country that play harder than us.”

He said that many teams underestimated the Aggies.

UCLA was not among them.

Seemingly reveling in the role of villains, the Bruins took advantage of New Mexico State’s poor shooting and torched the Aggies, showing off their superior talent, depth and experience.

Despite some early problems--Mitchell Butler was called for three fouls in the first 3 1/2 minutes--UCLA opened a 19-12 lead before the Aggies scored four consecutive points to bring the partisan crowd to full roar.

Reserve guard Darrick Martin silenced the crowd with a three-point shot that started an 11-2 run by UCLA that also included two three-point shots by Tracy Murray, whose second gave the Bruins a 30-18 lead.

Hickman made two free throws after a technical foul against Madkins, slowing the run. But UCLA put together a 13-2 rally to make it 43-22.

It was 47-31 at halftime.

At the start of the second half, UCLA went cold.

The Bruins missed their first six shots, giving up 10 consecutive points and allowing the Aggies to close to within 47-41 before MacLean, after taking a pass from Madkins, scored on a 12-foot jump shot to stall the run.

UCLA’s lead was 53-47 when MacLean crashed through the lane to score on a follow shot, starting an 11-0 run by the Bruins that included a three-point play and an assist by MacLean to put the Bruins back in control.

They never led by fewer than seven points the rest of the way.

Bruin Notes

Tracy Murray, who led UCLA with 21 points, has averaged 22.3 points in three NCAA tournament games while shooting 62.1%. He has led the Bruins in scoring in all three games. . . . Gerald Madkins never scored more than 13 points in 24 regular-season games, scoring in double figures only four times. But since moving from point guard to off-guard at the start of the tournament, he has scored 16, 16 and 15 points.

New Mexico State Coach Neil McCarthy, on the difference in the talent level of the two teams: “UCLA doesn’t want any of my players, and I can’t get any of UCLA’s players. That’s it in a nutshell.” . . . McCarthy, on his efforts to recruit UCLA’s Ed O’Bannon and Shon Tarver: “They never heard of us. They thought we were across the border. We had to put New Mexico, U.S.A . on the envelope.” . . . Said UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, trying to minimize the talent gap: “You cannot tell me that we have anyone more talented than Sam Crawford. . . . Sam Crawford was as talented as any guy coming out of Los Angeles at (any) time. You just hadn’t heard of him (before the NCAA tournament).”

Among the Bruin contingent was Larry Pierce, 43, an administrative analyst at UCLA who is afflicted with muscular dystrophy and has been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. UCLA boosters took up a collection to send Pierce, a long-time Bruin fan who regularly attends practice.