This One Rates Top Billing

Duke schmuke. Go on, make UCLA No. 1 again.

I have no idea how good North Carolina looked Thursday night against top-dog Duke, but it couldn’t have looked any better than UCLA did against USC. Whatever bad things the Tar Heels went and done to their Blue Devil basketball rivals from just down the tarry two-lane blacktop, I don’t much care. Because the Bruins went out and did even worse things to their Trojan rivals from just down the quakey-shaky freeway.

They made it look easy, 101-72, in this latest episode of Late Night at Pauley Pavilion. Shon Tarver and the Flying O’Bannon Brothers swooped to the hoop, Tyus Edney stole everything but the Trojans’ ugly socks, the ZZ-Top tandem of centers George Zidek and Rodney Zimmerman dominated the paint and another generous donation was made by UCLA’s freshly minted freshman, Cameron $.

Number 2 in the country? Number 4?

Looked like a No. 1 team to me.

Coming off a cold day at Cal, this was one of the really impressive efforts of the season by the Bruins, as well as a timely one, in case anybody east of Westwood was curious whether Jim Harrick’s title contenders would fall apart after their first defeat. Trust me, they did not. They were so far ahead so fast, USC Coach George Raveling called time 2:13 into the contest. No wonder George continued to vote UCLA first in the polls, even after last week’s dip.

Besides, being beaten by Cal is something that happens even to the best of teams. Ask Arizona’s players. Ask the 1993 Duke squad. Tearful Todd Bozeman has such a fine squad up there, he might not need a handkerchief during this year’s NCAA tournament. Coach Bozeman got so weepy last March after a question about his predecessor, Lou Campanelli, you would have thought somebody had just stolen Jason Kidd’s puppy.

This is an up year for the Pac-10, so winning the conference title will not be any more of a snap than winning the NCAA championship will be. Even so, if the Bruins can keep their game at a fever pitch, the way they played Thursday, they don’t have to be afraid of any of those clubs 3,000 miles away in North Carolina.

They trailed USC for, oh, a few seconds. Mark Boyd rebounded and scored in midair, all in one motion, and the Trojans on the bench beside Raveling all stood and cheered.

After that, they mostly sat.

Zidek dunked. Ed O’Bannon pumped. Charles O’Bannon stole the ball and found Tarver downcourt, open like Jerry Rice. An in-bounds pass was pilfered by Edney, who forwarded it to Ed O’Bannon, who jammed. Scarcely more than two minutes were gone, but Raveling, standing with his hands folded into a T, already could see the writing on the Pauley wall. This game was over .

He couldn’t tell his players that, of course. Burt Harris, a broad-beamed sophomore guard who is built like a garment bag, scored from the lane. And then Boyd got a layup off an in-bounds play, and the Trojans quickly made the score 8-6. But a minute or two later, it was 17-6 and the most interesting thing thereafter was watching John Wooden in the bleachers, chatting with Sidney Wicks.

Best of all for the Bruins, they didn’t coast through the second half. Last time I saw them in person, they had looked just as good for a half against North Carolina State, only to act a little lazy after halftime and let the game get tight. Harrick wasn’t too happy with that one. That night in Greensboro, N.C., he must have had a moment or two wondering if his players would have difficulty keeping their focus.

But all had gone well, at least until the Cal game. Not too many teams could have handled Kidd that day, and nobody expected UCLA to go undefeated anyway.

No coach, though, can be sure how a team will react to its first defeat. Harrick said before Thursday’s game, “Now we’ll find out what we’re made of.”

No, USC found out what UCLA’s made of.

This game was a laugher, even to the point of Ed O’Bannon literally laughing aloud after a shot from a crazy angle somehow found its way into the basket, making the score 32-16. Nothing could wipe the smiles off the Bruins’ faces after that, not even Zidek’s awkward left-handed imitation of Lew Alcindor--the season’s first air hook--or a flurry before the halftime buzzer in which UCLA players misfired from every possible angle.

“It didn’t much matter what they tried tonight,” Raveling said later. “Pretty much whatever they did worked.”

UCLA played like a team that ranks above anybody’s anywhere.

Or should be.

Or will be.