Bruins Find Relief in Desert : College basketball: A solid second half helps UCLA defeat Arizona State, 76-70.

Call off the buzzards. For UCLA, things aren’t nearly as bad as they have looked lately, said Charles O’Bannon.

In fact, right after the Bruins defeated Arizona State, 76-70, Thursday night, O’Bannon said it was time to deliver a message to Arizona in time for Saturday’s game in Tucson.

“We’re back,” O’Bannon said. “Yeah, we had a couple of bad games, but we’re a good team.

“This was very, very big,” he said. “Now we still have a two-game conference lead and if we win Saturday, we pretty much have a chance to clinch.”

No. 8 UCLA, probably the most highly critiqued 18-2 team in college basketball, ran its Pacific 10 Conference record to 11-1 by continuing what it seems to do best--beating the Sun Devils.

It has been five years since UCLA lost to Arizona State, which ran its losing streak against the Bruins to 11. The Bruins made sure with a withering stretch run when they scored 10 points on their last five possessions.

As it turned out, UCLA had just enough to withstand consecutive three-point baskets from Stevin Smith, Isaac Burton and Quincy Brewer, the last one tying the score, 70-70, with 1:09 to play.

UCLA scored the game’s last six points. Cameron Dollar broke the tie with a driving layup, then got in the way of Brewer, who missed on a drive. Ed O’Bannon got chopped with 20 seconds left and made two free throws for a 74-70 lead, Brewer missed again on a drive and Tyus Edney wrapped it up with two more free throws with five seconds left.

“We were fortunate,” Coach Jim Harrick said.

Maybe so, but the Bruins were also pretty resilient. Smith made four three-pointers in the first half as he shot Arizona State to a 36-27 lead, but UCLA scored the last eight points of the half to get back to within 36-35.

Shon Tarver, who had four of those points on breakaway layups and finished with 18, said the Bruins knew then that they had something special going.

“Sometimes, it was incredible,” he said.

The Bruins kept it close and edged ahead even without all of their usual weapons. Ed O’Bannon did not have a basket in the half, George Zidek had only one and Charles O’Bannon already had three fouls.

So what happened in the second half? UCLA had only four turnovers, Ed O’Bannon had 12 points, Zidek finished with 11 rebounds and four blocked shots and Charles O’Bannon cleared the backboards with 13 rebounds in 26 minutes.

A glum Bill Frieder added it all up and knew why his team went down the drain again.

“They made the big plays when they had to do it,” he said.

They also made the big free throws, which is something of a recent occurrence for the Bruins. After the first 11 games of the season, UCLA was last in the Pac-10 in free throw shooting.

UCLA has improved to No. 5 and probably is going to go higher after making 15 of 17 against the Sun Devils. Edney was seven for seven from the line and matched Tarver with 18 points.

Frieder saw the Bruins get 17 free throws the first meeting at Pauley Pavilion and didn’t feel much better after watching after Thursday night.

“My fouling techniques are not the best against UCLA,” he said.

Meanwhile, Arizona State’s shooting techniques left something to be desired, at least in the second half.

With Tarver as his shadow, Smith scored only seven points in the second half. Bennett, guarded closely by Ed O’Bannon when Zidek started a collection of fouls, had only six points after halftime.

If it weren’t for 26 offensive rebounds, it might have been even worse for the Sun Devils (12-9, 7-5), who also missed 13 of 25 free throws and probably waved goodby to any shot at the NCAA tournament.

* It Gets Worse

No. 15 Arizona hands USC its worst loss of the season, 94-61, the Trojan’s eighth defeat in their last nine games. C8