Sputtering Start, Then Bruins Win : College basketball: After raising championship banner, UCLA has to rally to beat Cal State Fullerton, 79-63.

UCLA raised its 11th championship banner, then played 10 good minutes Tuesday night.

Before a crowd ready to roar but sentenced to stony silence through long stretches, it was not pretty or poetic or particularly reminiscent of anything the Bruins did to earn that banner.

But, against a Cal State Fullerton team that stayed in contention against the turnover-plagued Bruins with quickness and hustle, it was enough to emerge with a 79-63 victory before 10,941 at Pauley Pavilion.

The game was preceded by the 1995 title banner being hung between John Wooden’s first title (1964) and his last (1975). And the game was decided in the first 12 minutes of the second half, when the Bruins blasted past the Titans with a rumbling rush of slams, steals and fullcourt sprints.

Trailing, 30-29, at halftime, UCLA opened the second half at a blistering pace, outscoring the Titans, 30-13, in the first 10 minutes, triggered by freshman center Jelani McCoy’s above-the-rim dominance and team-wide harrying defense.

By the time the run was over, the Bruins had a 16-point lead, 59-43, with 9:41 left to play.

UCLA committed 11 turnovers in a nervous first half, and made only three of its 10 free-throw attempts. In the second half, as the Bruins were taking control, they committed only six turnovers and made 17-of-20 free throws.

“Those two stats have been real, real, real big in my eyes in all four games we’ve played,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said. “And in the first half it hurt us. To get up to shoot 66.6% from the line [overall] was a real big improvement for the team.”

McCoy finished the night with 16 points on six-of-six field-goal shooting, most of them power dunks, and, maybe most happily for Harrick, made all four of his free-throw attempts in the second half.

Toby Bailey, playing point guard at times when Cameron Dollar was on the bench, led the Bruins with 23 points and a career-high eight assists, and J.R. Henderson had 19 points and nine rebounds.

Will Bailey play more point guard? “I think that’s Bailey’s position ultimately in his career,” Harrick said. “He really sees the floor well. We’ll use him there to replace Dollar in some situations.”

But, in between the ceremonial music and the jam session, in a first half of fumbles and free-throw foibles--then later, in the game’s last eight minutes--the going was far less glorious.

The Bruins jumped out to an early 16-13 lead, keyed by a slam-bam 8-1 run, early in the first half. But with Dollar struggling and the half-court offense a tense mess, the Bruins went 10 consecutive possessions without a point.

In that dizzy span, 7:29 of frustration, UCLA (2-2) missed six field-goal attempts, failed on the front end of two one-and-one free throw tries, and committed three turnovers.

The end of the drought came with 5:00 left in the half, when Charles O’Bannon made UCLA’s first jump-shot basket of the game from about 16 feet.

By the end of it, as Fullerton’s Chris St. Clair and Chuck Overton kept finding lanes through the UCLA defense, the Bruins were trailing, 24-16. After many more ugly moments, they quietly trudged into their locker room for halftime.

UCLA moved quickly in the second half on a three-point basket by Bailey--UCLA’s only three-point shot of the night-- and a dunk by O’Bannon, both on assists by Dollar.

From there, with Dollar and the rest of the UCLA defenders swarming the Titans into numerous half-court errors, the run was on.

“I thought we played a lot better in the second half than in the first half,” Harrick said. “I liked the second half. Any time you miss a series of foul shots, it’s like putting a needle in the balloon; it just busts your enthusiasm.”

But the Titans, playing their first game of the season, didn’t allow themselves to get blown out, grabbing 17 offensive rebounds on the night. Forward John Williams had four offensive boards (seven overall) and turned most of those into baskets.