Bruins, Bears Renew the Feud

UCLA and California, who cross paths twice a season and rarely without controversy, incident or hard feelings, play today at Pauley Pavilion in a particularly meaningful rendition of this raucous basketball rivalry.

Beyond the bitter words, Cal’s three-game winning streak in Westwood and last year’s flap over the alleged Bruin misbehavior during a Cal practice at Pauley, this is also a matchup of the only two undefeated teams in the Pacific 10 Conference.

Fourteen games into this campaign, is this the biggest game of the season?

“Cal is always the big rivalry,” guard Toby Bailey said. “They came in here last year and beat us up pretty bad. It’s always going to be a rivalry, and since they’re so strong this year, it’s just going to be even stronger.”

Against all teams except Cal, UCLA is 40-2 at home dating to the ‘92-93 season. Against Cal at Pauley during that time, UCLA is 0-3.

“You could have gone all year without reminding me of that,” Coach Jim Harrick said of the home losing streak. “Well, I hope we can make a statement, say this is our place. But as long as we win the league and win the national championship like we did last year, it’s not really going to make any difference to me.”

Last Jan. 28, an emotional Cal team handed UCLA what turned out to be its final defeat of the season, 100-93, keyed by a 24-point performance by forward Tremaine Fowlkes, who is currently under NCAA suspension. The Bruins won 19 in a row--and the national title, of course--after that defeat.

“I just want to win,” Cal Coach Todd Bozeman said of playing UCLA at Pauley. “If I could exchange the win at Pauley last year for winning a national championship like they did last year, I’d do it.”

After the game, Bozeman and his players said they were inspired by an incident the day before, when they said Harrick, assistant Steve Lavin and several players interrupted practice.

For their part, the Bruins deny having done anything more than ambling toward their own locker room during the final minutes of Cal’s practice to get ready for their own workout. They blame the Bears for making the Bruins look like instigators.

Friday, Cal’s practice was moved up half an hour to avoid any possible overlap, and when Harrick walked on to the court while Cal was getting ready to leave, he made sure to exchange brief pleasantries with Bozeman.

“They weren’t practicing,” Harrick said. “I just walked in to practice. We practice at 2:50 every day, and they were finished. Went over and said hello to him.”

Then, with a smile: “It’s really, basically what happened last time.”