COLLEGE BASKETBALL / GENE WOJCIECHOWSKI : COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : Harrick Hops, Skips, Jumps Very Hot Seat

As Bruin players formed their victory beehive at midcourt, and UCLA assistant coaches ran across the hardwood with upraised arms, and bands played, and fans exchanged bear hugs, and Al McGuire rubbed his temples in disbelief . . . you could see Jim Harrick. There he was, allowing himself a short hop, but hardly high enough to slip a lineup card under his polished loafers.

This is how the coach celebrated the biggest win of his well-criticized UCLA career. With a hop. A smile. A sigh. A handshake.

“I was so emotionally drained,” Harrick said. “It was hard to jump. I couldn’t get any lift anyway.”

That wouldn’t have been a problem had the No. 1-ranked Bruins lost to Missouri Sunday afternoon at the Boise State Pavilion. Angry UCLA followers would have formed a committee to hoist Harrick atop their shoulders and dump him into the nearby Boise River.

Hang time, the Harrick way.

Instead, Tyus Edney rescued the Bruins and Harrick from “Tulsa--The Sequel.”

In 4.8 seconds, the time it took the senior guard to weave his way through Missouri’s ill-conceived defense, kiss the ball off the smudged glass and watch as it fell exhausted through the net, Harrick was saved from the kind of heat that comes from a steel mill blast furnace.

“That’s a crazy business,” Harrick said. “One point makes a difference in a whole state. The whole state of Missouri and the whole city of Los Angeles, on one point.

“I know if we had lost . . .,” he said, rolling his eyes upward. “Well, I don’t want to answer that.”

The Bruins know what would have happened. They’ve seen it before.

“You know: ‘Another one of Harrick’s teams loses in the first round,’ ” said guard Cameron Dollar, who didn’t score a point, but put a second-half glove on Missouri’s leading scorer, Paul O’Liney. “ ‘Underachieving team.’ I’m sure at the time, when we were down, most people back home were saying we would probably lose, probably bad-mouthing us already.”

And this from Bruin Assistant Coach Lorenzo Romar: “Oh, it was probably, ‘Typical UCLA team--underachievers.’ People got up from their chairs, ready to (criticize Harrick), until Tyus made that shot. Now there’s someone saying, ‘They got lucky and sneaked by. Let’s see when they play Mississippi State.’ ”

This is the Harrick curse. He can win, but never enough to satisfy. He can have the No. 1 team in the country, but no ranking is convincing enough. He can reach the Sweet 16, but not without someone attaching an asterisk to the last-second victory.

* UCLA 75, Missouri 74 (But only because Missouri Coach Norm Stewart made a bonehead call and forgot to double-team Edney on the inbound pass.)

This time Harrick deserves a break. Actually, he deserves a pat on the back.

It was Harrick who stood in the middle of the UCLA huddle, his team down by one point and a trip to the West Regional semifinal at stake, and told Edney, “Tyus, I want you to take the ball and I want you to make the play. Tyus, you’re taking it. It’s on you.”

Too much pressure on Edney? Nope. By limiting the options, by expressing that kind of confidence in the senior point guard, Harrick did Edney a favor.

“(Edney) didn’t have to make a decision,” Romar said. “His decision was, ‘I’m going to take it.’ ”

And he did, pausing only long enough to take a quick glance at the defense before sweeping past Tiger defenders Jason Sutherland and later, Derek Grimm.

Harrick has made these kind of decisions before. “Take a hunch, bet a bunch,” is the way he puts it. Except that in seasons past, the hunches never seemed to pay off when it counted. Harrick bashers have the failures memorized.

This time Harrick pressed every right button. He switched Edney to Missouri’s Kendrick Moore after the Tigers moved ahead. Moore isn’t much of a scorer, but he was the one penetrating the lane and then dishing off to teammates (mostly O’Liney) for open shots. Edney helped put an end to that in the second half.

Harrick also stuck Dollar on O’Liney with 15:20 left to play. O’Liney had 21 points at the time. He finished with 23.

And it was Harrick who decided to keep 6-9 freshman J.R. Henderson in the lineup during the last few critical minutes. By going to the small lineup, Missouri’s Stewart was forced to do the same thing, keeping his two 7-footers, Sammie and Simeon Haley, on the bench. That meant when Edney was making his mad last-second dash down the lane there was only the 6-9 Grimm and not the 7-1 Sammie or 7-0 Simeon standing there with arms upraised.

Little things, but they mattered Sunday.

Afterward, when the Bruins finally reached the locker room, Harrick quieted his team and talked to them about going all the way. He conducted a history lesson of sorts, reciting all the past NCAA champions who have overcome the impossible with the impossible.

Duke and Christian Laettner.

Arkansas and Ulysses Reed.

This was UCLA’s turn. The way Harrick figured it, someone owed him one.

“Sometimes they even out,” Harrick said. “But you’ve got to have good players.”

UCLA got its miracle Sunday, but Edney wasn’t the only one Bruin fans should thank. Dollar might have been responsible for the inbound pass to Edney, but Harrick ought to get an assist on someone’s score sheet. It’s the least anyone could do.