Petruska Makes a World of Difference

Out here in the land of Schwarzenegger and Van Damme, our action heroes come armed with brick biceps and thick accents. Even the largest of the Lakers is one of those Eastern European imports, Vlade Divac, that lovable lug who endears himself to us with descriptions of attempts to “bloke Chozz Bockley’s shoats” (block Charles Barkley’s shots). Vladey’s was our first basketball star who came with subtitles.

And now UCLA, too, has gone globe-trotting. In a game of basketball Thursday night at the Sports Arena that was won, 90-80, over an energetic but unusually tiny team from USC, the losing side got its first really good look at Richard Petruska, and went away muttering as though they had just run into Herman Munster.

“He weighs about 900 pounds,” USC Coach George Raveling said.

The school that once sent John Wooden’s talent scouts searching for championship-level centers from the skyscrapers of New York (Lew Alcindor) to the sands of Southern California (Bill Walton) has gone out and gotten itself a 6-foot-10, 260-pound Czechoslovakian board-pounder, Petruska, whose huge 17-point first half made him loom even larger as the game went on, particularly to a team that starts three players 6-1 or smaller.

“Petruska?” USC forward Tremayne Anchrum said. “He was a madman.”

It was a big game for the big man and for his coach, who were not exactly strolling around campus hand-in-hand after Petruska’s play displeased Jim Harrick, a man who must have felt like benching his entire lineup after its most recent effort. Petruska’s own teammates, much like Divac’s, believe he suffers from occasional lapses in concentration, and he also has a dangerous habit of fouling out--six times now in 18 games.

Petruska himself said after Thursday’s latest disqualification: “Yes. I know, I know. I do much better in first hoff ( half ), but after that they are calling the fouls on me too much.”

He scored only two points in the second half and fouled out with 4:02 remaining, with the game yet in doubt. And yet Harrick, who acknowledged that Petruska needed this good effort because his “back was to the wall”--as perhaps is the coach’s--came away sufficiently pleased with Petruska that he now appears ready to go forward with a great experiment:

Namely, an NBA-sized front line of 6-8 sophomore Ed O’Bannon, 6-9 junior Rodney Zimmerman and the 6-10 senior Petruska, who transferred a few miles down the road from Loyola Marymount.

“Yes, I just might, I just might,” Harrick said. “I’ve been thinking more and more about that very thing. Especially because Oregon State’s coming up a few games from now, and they’ve got some size. We’ve only fooled around with that big lineup so far, a few minutes here and there. But we’ve been using it in practice and it might be time to give it a try.”

Zimmerman is the man who presently doesn’t start, but, surprisingly, he is the one who seems least concerned.

“Hey, I see no reason to go to Plan B because there’s nothing wrong with Plan A,” Zimmerman said.

“People have been asking me that from time to time--how about playing the all-big lineup? Call it what you want. The Twin Towers. The Tri-Towers. I don’t care. The thing is, Ed can play the point, he can play the wing, he can play the post, doesn’t matter to him. I can play big forward if you want me to, and Petruska has his three basic moves in the middle that he’s got down pat, so you leave him right where he is.

“But is it necessary to start all three of us? Not necessarily.”

Mike Lanier, a seldom-used reserve, stood alongside. He, too, is slightly larger than USC’s players. Mike stands 7-7.

“Heck, we go against Mike here in practice every day,” Zimmerman said. “So it’s not as though we aren’t accustomed to matching up against larger lineups. Right, Mike?”

“Right,” Mike said.

The front line for UCLA is not a bad one now, even with Tracy Murray and Don MacLean no longer on it. O’Bannon, wearing a mask that makes his head appear as though it has been Saran-wrapped, is increasingly effective and Shon Tarver, who swings between forward and guard, had 26 points against USC in one of his best efforts.

But Mitchell Butler is contributing less and less, so the Bruins might wish to tinker around with some other rotations. Petruska, who was not happy about having his playing time reduced, did very well this time in the minutes he was out there, but first things first: He has to go out there and stay out there.

“I foul too much, yes,” Petruska said. “Maybe I play more with Rodney, he take some of my fouls.”

Could work.