Harrick Very Likely to Receive Extension : UCLA: Satisfied Dalis says tournament performance isn’t key to new contract.

With little equivocation in the wake of this season’s sprint to the top of the basketball polls, the UCLA administration has signaled that it plans to commit itself to Coach Jim Harrick beyond his current contract, which is guaranteed through the 1996-97 season.

Whenever, and however, this season ends, Athletic Director Peter T. Dalis said, the administration has long-term hopes for Harrick, who has often been perceived to be on shaky ground in Westwood.

“I will talk to the chancellor about it, and I would suspect we would extend his contract,” Dalis said, adding that the length of the proposed extension would be decided when the season is over.

“I like what’s happening in the program,” Dalis said.

“If we were to stumble in the tournament, I could not find fault with this season. I really could not.”

Dalis says he is prepared for an uproar if the Bruins do not meet soaring hopes in the tournament.

“Oh, there will definitely be a loud, raucous response (among fans) if UCLA loses,” he said. “The expectation level, and it’s understandable, is very high.

“But nothing will detract from my satisfaction with this year’s performance. Nothing.”

Harrick, finishing his seventh season at UCLA, each of them ending in the NCAA tournament and with at least 20 victories, said he would welcome talks to keep him with the Bruins beyond 1997.

“I want to be here,” he said. “I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 35 years. This is our home. Our family’s here, our sons. This is where we want to be.

“I’ve had opportunities to go elsewhere. But I haven’t really considered it.”

Harrick, 56, has received his harshest criticism in the past for UCLA’s disappointments in March. He has not yet guided the Bruins into the Final Four and has lost twice in the first round to lower-seeded teams.

But Dalis says the administration has not evaluated Harrick and his staff on tournament play alone.

“The problem is going to be that the measurement is (usually) going to be the tournament,” Dalis said. “I just think that that’s unfortunate for college sports. I would hope that people don’t measure the success of this year (solely by the tournament), because there aren’t too many schools in the country, I believe, that have accomplished what we accomplished this year.”

Despite the blowout loss to Tulsa last season in the tournament, Dalis said Harrick would not have lost his job this season even if UCLA had struggled.

UCLA Notes

Center George Zidek was named a GTE Academic All-America first team member. An economics major, Zidek has a 3.77 grade-point average. He is averaging 12 points and six rebounds a game.