Bruins Bounce Back From Terrible Start : College basketball: Washington State jumps to 23-6 advantage, then falls at the finish, 81-79. UCLA improves to 10-0.

What might happen in UCLA’s game Saturday at Washington?

A boycott.

What happened in the Bruins’ game Thursday night against Washington State?

They got caught . . . well, almost.

The unbeaten Bruins, who trailed by 17 points in the first six minutes, won their 10th consecutive game by downing Washington State, 81-79, at Freil Court.

All in all, it wasn’t especially pretty, but it was clearly effective. The No. 5-ranked Bruins didn’t relegate the Cougars to an 0-3 Pacific 10 Conference start until the last minute.

With UCLA clinging to a 77-76 lead, Charles O’Bannon blocked Eddie Hill’s shot. Tyus Edney got the ball and was fouled intentionally by Tony Harris, which resulted in a technical foul and two free throws by Edney as well as possession of the ball.

Edney made them both, George Zidek made two more and that was enough for UCLA to withstand Hill’s three-pointer with 1.3 seconds left.

Ed O’Bannon led UCLA, 3-0 in the Pac-10, with 18 points and nine rebounds. All five Bruin starters scored in double figures.

Down by 10 points at the half, UCLA caught up at 51-51 on two free throws by Rodney Zimmerman, fell behind and caught up again at 58-58.

It wasn’t until Edney’s driving layup with 4:08 left that UCLA got its first lead, 72-71.

But even after Cougar standout Mark Hendrickson, a 6-9 forward, fouled out with 3:36 to go, UCLA couldn’t pull away.

Instead, they squeaked away, but left the court with their arms raised in triumph. They didn’t leave it that way at the end of the first half.

Before you could say Palouse, the Cougars had run off to a 23-6 lead and the Bruins seemed to be in a state of shock.

For a while, except for a couple of one-handed rebound dunks by Ed O’Bannon and Charles O’Bannon, the only glimmers of emotion produced on UCLA’s end of the court were the sideways glance Zimmerman shot at Harrick and Harrick pushing away assistant coach Mark Gottfried when Harrick was arguing a call.

Let’s say it wasn’t exactly UCLA’s finest moment.

The Bruins missed eight free throws, had eight turnovers, missed 21 of 33 shots and finished the first half extremely fortunate to be trailing by only 45-35.

As for UCLA’s vaunted running game, it produced exactly two points in the first half, those coming on a steal by Edney and his assist on Ed O’Bannon’s dunk.

That brought the Bruins to within 34-25, which is as close as they got in the half except for the first couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, Harrick expects Saturday’s game at Seattle to proceed without incident, despite indications that the Black Coaches Assn. will stage some sort of action to protest the NCAA decision on scholarships.

Harrick said no one from the BCA has contacted him about a possible action and neither has he spoken with UCLA Chancellor Charles Young or Athletic Director Pete Dalis to receive any instruction.

“All I know is what I read in the papers,” Harrick said.

While Harrick said he is “genuinely sympathetic” to the BCA stance on the scholarship issue, he also said, “Not everything in life is fair.”

Harrick indicated that the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches might be a better forum to work on the issue.

“I thought our NABC had fought and lobbied and worked very, very hard to get one more scholarship rule passed. And it didn’t. It’s upsetting, but you’ve got to go on.

“The NABC wants to go by what the NCAA says. They are the governing body.

‘I’ll do what the NCAA says.”

* CAL UPSETS ARIZONA: Lamond Murray scored 33 points and made the big plays in regulation and overtime as No. 19 Bears defeated No. 6 Wildcats in Tucson, 98-93. C4