COLLEGE BASKETBALL / DAILY REPORT : FINAL FOUR : Bruins Review Big Country’s Wreckage

They didn’t get onto the court until about 90 minutes after the shattering, but UCLA was fully aware that Bryant (Big Country) Reeves had shattered a Kingdome backboard during Friday’s workouts.

Not surprisingly, UCLA senior center George Zidek, who has known for a week that his play against the 7-foot, 293-pound Reeves will be the most-watched matchup of the game, was the first Bruin asked about the idea of smashing backboards.

“It’s my dream,” Zidek said with a wistful grin at UCLA’s media conference.

Later, Zidek downplayed the significance of the damage done. “Even if you try, sometimes you can’t do it,” he said. “I’m not looking at it as any kind of personal challenge.

“But I could just imagine, there were so many people, how long it took to fix a backboard in front of 20,000 people. It had to be funny.”

It took the Kingdome crew about 20 minutes to replace the backboard.

Senior forward Ed O’Bannon said Zidek laughed when he found out.

“He’s pretty impressed,” O’Bannon said. “He liked it. He’s a big powerful man, himself.”

And O’Bannon’s response to Reeves? “Wow. I’m sure that won’t be his last. He’s a big man, he should do that.”

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On Feb. 9, the day of their game against Washington, Harrick took the Bruins on a tour of the Kingdome. Though it was filled with recreational vehicles that day, he wanted the Bruins to know what their ultimate destination looked like.

How different was Friday’s bus ride?

“The first one, when we pulled in, we had trouble getting into the Kingdome,” Charles O’Bannon said. “This time, we had security, there were hundreds of people outside asking for autographs and taking pictures. Big-time difference, definitely.

“It looks the same on the outside, but when we walked in the first time, there were a lot of RVs, and this time we saw the court and saw the crowd and everyone was, ‘Let’s play now, let’s play now .’ ”

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Tyus Edney, Ed O’Bannon and Zidek got an early glimpse of the Friday scene at the Kingdome, sneaking out to watch a little of North Carolina’s practice before their own.

Back in the UCLA locker room, the Bruin seniors seemed a little dazed by the experience.

“Aw, it was crazy, loud,” Ed O’Bannon said. “You walk out there and you see all those people, the floor is shining and the glass is shining. . . . It’s just a great atmosphere.”

Said Zidek: “Well, I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life, that’s for sure.”

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Although assuring that the Bruins will start out in their standard man-to-man defense against Oklahoma State, assistant coach Mark Gottfried said there is a chance UCLA will play at least some zone today.

A zone would give the Cowboys and Reeves something different to think about, Gottfried said. And although Oklahoma State has three-point marksman Randy Rutherford available to shoot over zones, Gottfried pointed out that UCLA was successful in a zone earlier this year against Stanford and its long-range shooter, Dion Cross.