Bruins Use Their New Kid on Block to Bully Maryland : College basketball: McCoy has 11 rejections in a triple-double that’s too much for Terrapins, 73-63.

At times Saturday, Jelani McCoy, the biggest little kid on the UCLA Bruins, looked as if he could have played defense against Maryland all by himself.

At times--more precisely, 11 times , not including the scores of shots he altered and intimidated--it looked as if he did.

In a blockbuster, nationally televised, shot-blocking binge, the bubbly 18-year-old freshman from San Diego terrorized the Terrapins with 11 rejections (and into a horrid 24.7% field-goal shooting day) and emerged as potentially the Bruins’ most dominant defensive player since some guys named Walton and Alcindor.

Along the way, McCoy scored 15 points, grabbed 10 rebounds (earning UCLA’s first recorded triple-double), committed eight of UCLA’s 29 turnovers and led the Bruins to a 73-63 victory over No. 20 Maryland before 17,330 at The Pond of Anaheim in the second game of the John R. Wooden Classic.

For a team searching for consistency and confidence, McCoy’s monster outing was a blocked-shot-in-the-arm performance that echoed a hoary moment of last season’s national title drive.

Last December, then-freshman J.R. Henderson made two free throws with 0.6 seconds left to give UCLA a one-point victory over Kentucky in the first Wooden Classic.

“I believe this is our turning point,” said junior forward Charles O’Bannon, who scored a team-high 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. “Last year at the Wooden Classic, the Kentucky game gave us a lot of momentum.”

And a screaming, giggling, hyper 6-foot-10 teenager shall lead them?

“He’s a big kid on the court,” O’Bannon said of McCoy, whose on-court gestures and yelps have become a major part of the Bruin presence this season. “That’s his personality.”

As the Bruins (3-3) continued to fumble away the basketball against a swarming Maryland pressure defense, McCoy’s elastic arms kept Maryland missing, and injured point guard Cameron Dollar provided crucial late ballhandling work in relief.

“He has one rare ability: blocking shots,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said of McCoy, who broke the school record of eight blocks, held by David Greenwood and Rodney Zimmerman. (They also shared the Pacific 10 Conference record with Arizona State’s Mario Bennett.) The statistic has been recorded only since 1978-79, so totals by Walton or then-Lew Alcindor are not in the books.

“I thought last year we got a little jump-start from the game down here, which ended up turning around our season,” Harrick said. “Hopefully, this will give us a little jump-start too.”

With Maryland (3-3) struggling to do anything effective offensively (the Terrapins had only three assists), UCLA built a 24-11 lead, and cruised into halftime ahead, 36-23.

As a measure of McCoy’s presence, the Terrapin starting front line shot a combined four of 21 in the game, and leading scorer Johnny Rhodes, defended most of the game by 6-9 Henderson, was only three for 15.

“I think UCLA did a good job of intimidating us early,” Maryland Coach Gary Williams said.

Early in the second half, the Bruins took a 44-25 lead, before their early season turnover habit brought Maryland back. During one four-minute stretch against the Terrapin full-court press, UCLA turned the ball over eight times--four failed in-bounds passes in a row at one point--and did not score a point.

Maryland, led by point guard Duane Simpkins, who had a game-high 21 points (but also committed nine turnovers), came as close as 47-42 during that stretch.

In their previous game, last Saturday at Kansas, the Bruins frittered away a 15-point halftime lead with turnovers and panicked play. But when Harrick sent Dollar in for the first time, with 12:21 left in the game, UCLA steadied and pulled away.

“I had to use Cameron because he settles us down,” Harrick said. “He knows how to get open against the press and bring the ball up.”

Dollar, who has a torn ligament in his right pinky and a dislocation and chipped bone in his left pinky, was available to play Saturday only on an “if-needed” basis. He was needed.

But UCLA, which doesn’t play again until a week from Monday, against Stephen F. Austin at Pauley Pavilion, clearly gained a measure of relief from Saturday’s victory.

“The same thing could’ve happened that happened in the Kansas game,” said Toby Bailey, who assumed most of the ballhandling duties with Dollar out. “We could’ve given it up. But we learned from the Kansas game, we started taking better care of the ball. And we won the game.”