Bruins’ Victory Is the Definition of Winning Ugly : College basketball: UCLA goes cold, but Washington is even colder, 75-57.

What’s the sound of two teams bricking?

Thursday night, in the middle of UCLA’s 75-57 victory over Washington, the sound was mostly silence . . . and the hypnotic thud of basketballs caroming hard off the rim.

As 10,112 at Pauley Pavilion sat mesmerized, the turnovers piled up, the whistles blew and the basketball only occasionally found its way into the basket.

In the second half, the Bruins (8-1, 2-1 in Pacific 10 play), vastly superior in size and depth, gradually gained control of the game, with point guard Tyus Edney and forward Charles O’Bannon leading the way.

But that didn’t happen before a first half that included one desultory five-minute stretch during which neither team scored. UCLA, for its part, scored only 28 in the half, its lowest half this season.

“We don’t feel good about ourselves at this point,” said Charles O’Bannon, who led the team with 18 points but suffered a gash under his left eye late in the first half before returning with a bandage. He had four stitches after the game.

“We scored 28 in the first half--we definitely weren’t playing UCLA basketball.”

For UCLA’s four talented freshmen, this could have been a breakout game. Coach Jim Harrick, disgusted with his veterans in the early going, played all four on the floor together in meaningful action for the first time.

But this is how UCLA’s possessions went, in order, after J.R. Henderson, Toby Bailey, omm’A Givens and Kris Johnson got on the floor together (with sophomore guard Cameron Dollar) at 13:03 of the first half: turnover, missed shot, missed shot, missed shot, turnover, offensive foul.

Zero points.

“We looked real lost out there, I guess,” said Henderson, who struggled to a three-point, four-turnover outing in the second start of his career. “I think (Harrick) wanted to see us make things happen, see if we could get something started.”

Said Bailey: “I think we showed we can play hard defensively; we just have to concentrate on calming down on the offensive end.”

The Bruins, though, were not hurt by the freshman foibles, because at the same time the Huskies (4-7, 0-3) were going through one of the deep shooting slumps that have typified their conference action.

With Washington leading, 12-10, after UCLA forward Ed O’Bannon was given a personal foul plus a technical for arguing that he was fouled on a rebound, the Huskies made all four free throws to go up 16-10.

But immediately after the technical, Washington failed to score points on 14 consecutive possessions--missing six shots in a row and committing eight turnovers in that stretch.

Eventually, with Harrick working the veteran players back into the lineup and Washington continuing its offensive collapse, the Bruins got going, manufacturing a 16-2 run late in the half that gave them a 26-18 lead with 5:22 remaining. They had another offensive lull and led at the half, 28-25, despite 12 turnovers. The Huskies had 13.

“We have had droughts like that now for three straight games,” said Washington Coach Bob Bender, whose team made only 11 of its 33 shots in the first half and only one of 22 three-point shots in the game.

“But if we’d eliminated the turnovers and the offensive rebounds (UCLA had nine offensive boards in the half), we could have had a lead. The way we were playing, we were ecstatic to be down three. But it was a storm waiting to happen--oh, I guess I shouldn’t say that here.”

UCLA didn’t exactly thunder to start out the second half, but a steady 20-8 run to open the half basically sealed the game.

* USC

Lorenzo Orr scores 18 of his 24 points in the second half, leading Trojans to first Pac-10 victory of the season. C4