Bruins Clocked Doing 93

The faster the better, and this was “Speed,” Bruin-style.

The Jackson State Tigers, in the middle of a rambling western trip, bused in from Arizona, and UCLA blew them up Tuesday night.

Even though it came against the hard-traveled, turnover-prone Tigers, the 93-67 Bruin victory was the best basketball UCLA has played this season, the most organized and the least skittish.

And, while Jackson State boarded its bus after the game and hit the road back to Phoenix for the last of its three-games-in-six-days swing, the 24th-ranked Bruins savored the endless procession of twisting-layup and power-dunk opportunities before 6,442 at Pauley Pavilion.

Freshman Sean Farnham, who walked on to the team before earning a scholarship this fall, put a cherry on the performance with a lunging, flying bank shot with four seconds to play that had the Bruin starters roaring from the bench.

“I think it was a feel-good game for the guys,” said UCLA interim Coach Steve Lavin, whose team embarks on its first trip of the season this weekend.

UCLA (3-2) shot 71.1% from the field (32 of 45), forced Jackson State into 17 turnovers, cut down on the sloppy, silly play that has spoiled the first month of the season, and the Bruins poked their heads above .500 for the first time.

Next up is a tough trip, to Chicago to play Illinois at the United Center on Saturday, and to St. Louis to play the Billikens on Monday.

Though the Bruins committed 21 turnovers, 14 of those came in the second half, and most of those came well after the game had been decided and Jackson State was pressing the UCLA backups.

After a solid first half, which included a 14-0 UCLA run to pull to a double-digit lead, the Bruins sprinted away in the second on a series of fastbreaks, opening up a 22-point lead with 6:30 left in the game.

J.R. Henderson had a game-high 20 points, and Toby Bailey scored 18 points to go with five assists and five rebounds.

“I think everybody, individually and as a team, is kind of turning on at the right time,” said Bailey, who made seven of nine shots and one of his two three-point attempts. “I think I’ve been playing pretty good all year, except my shot hasn’t been going down. But I’ve been playing tough defense and trying to rebound and pass the ball.

“It just so happened my shot finally came on tonight.”

Said senior forward Bob Myers, whom Lavin credited with helping to spark the first-half run: “We’ve got two tough road games coming up, and it’s important for us to start really playing good basketball.”

The Bruins started slowly--enough to cause Lavin concern--but with eight minutes to play in the half, and Jackson State leading, 27-26, UCLA suddenly got its game in gear.

“You have to run through the walls, and there was definitely a wall up in the first half,” swingman Kris Johnson said. “But we ran through it.”

Said Lavin: “Mature teams compete every night, night in, night out, whether it’s at home, on the road, at a neutral site, no matter who it’s against, whether you’re up 20 or down 20.

“We want to get them where they’re at a consistently high level all the time, and we’re not there yet. But we’re definitely better than we were 10 days ago [when Kansas came to Pauley and crushed the Bruins].”

In the 14-0 run, UCLA scored on two McCoy baskets--a soaring slam and a leaner--a layup and a three-pointer by Bailey, two slams by O’Bannon, and a free throw by Myers.

McCoy’s dunk was the highlight; the 6-foot-9 sophomore took a pass at the free-throw line, gathered himself, dropped the ball but got it back and flew to the rim through and over the Tiger zone, slamming the ball through the basket and drawing a foul.

At the end of the run, the Bruins led, 40-27. Jackson State (2-6) fought back--with Marino Walker and DeCarto Draper (who combined to score 24 points in the game) firing in off-balance jumpers, and at halftime, the lead was 44-36.