Bruins’ ‘Bench’ Chips In

Dunks and discipline, a breakout second half and 11 more minutes of purgatory--the UCLA Bruins, once again, experienced it all Saturday night in what was supposed to be final tuneup for conference play.

It was a little more than that, of course.

Proving either that they haven’t learned the lesson or that they have a serious need for new watches, starters J.R. Henderson, Kris Johnson and Jelani McCoy were benched by interim Coach Steve Lavin to begin Saturday’s 87-72 victory over Morgan State because the three were late for an afternoon shootaround.

These same belated Bruins were benched for the first eight minutes of the Cal State Northridge game earlier this month after missing a team function the previous night.

“We didn’t do it on purpose,” Johnson said. “Things happen . . . I knew what was going to happen when I was coming down [to the practice floor], and you can do one of two things: Either you get [angry] and pout on the bench and make fools of ourselves, or we do what we did and cheer on our teammates.

“Nobody was mad, nobody was pouting. We just tried to put it behind us. This is something new for us. We’re not used to getting benched. Coach Harrick wouldn’t have benched us.

“It’s not abnormal, it’s something that a lot of teams do. But it’s something different for UCLA. We have a new head coach, and he’s stressing discipline and responsibility for our actions.”

The tardy trio were “about 22 seconds late” for the shootaround, according to Johnson. In their places, Lavin started Cameron Dollar, Brandon Loyd and Bob Myers.

“At this level, with these pressures, it probably could be easy to forget about these kinds of things,” Lavin said. “But tonight definitely was a lesson.”

After the Northridge benching, Lavin said he moved to make sure the brushfire didn’t turn into a raging blaze. Was this a sign that the fire was still burning?

“No. Now they know,” Lavin said, adding that he was very pleased to the way the three benched players reacted. “That’s the beauty of accountability.”

UCLA (5-3), which won its fourth in five games before 7,654,, opens its Pacific 10 Conference season Thursday at Pauley against Washington State.

“It’s definitely different than last year,” said Charles O’Bannon, who had 11 points and five assists. “But we have the same record as last year at this point, and we have to use that as a positive. We’ve been through a lot, and we’re at the same place.”

Lavin told the three latecomers to report to the scorer’s table after 10 minutes had elapsed, and they didn’t check in until the 11:02 was gone, when UCLA was ahead, 21-20.

“It was a flow-of-the-game thing,” Lavin said, explaining why he kept the trio out for as long as he did, “but those guys who started were going to be out there for a substantial amount of time.”

Two of the Bruins inserted into the lineup used the opportunity to full advantage--Dollar made his first two jumpers of the game, and finished with 13 points and three assists, and Myers had a career-high eight rebounds.

Morgan State (1-6) fired free over UCLA’s zone in the early-going, making four three-pointers in the first four minutes to jump out to a 14-8 lead.

Even with the regular Bruin lineup on the floor, the Bears kept at UCLA.

Morgan State forward Chris Watson made six of his seven first-half shots, grabbed six rebounds and scored 15 points in the first period, finishing with a game-high 21 points.

It took a 16-5 UCLA run--keyed by UCLA’s stepped up full-court press and finalized by McCoy’s offensive follow slam at the buzzer--to give the Bruins a 39-32 halftime lead.

UCLA made 58.6% of its field goal tries in the first half, but also was outrebounded, 19-12.

The three Bruin latecomers combined to score 16 points in the first half, with Johnson leading the team with eight.

The Bruins broke it loose in a fastbreaking second half, bursting to a double-digit lead on a procession of dunks and floating lay-ups--most of them by McCoy, who made all seven shots and had a team-high 16 points, and Johnson and Henderson, who both had 14.

* USC LOSES

Nevada Las Vegas gets some breathing room in the second half for an 80-75 victory. C9

* UTAH WINS

No. 8 Utes’ 77-50 victory over UC Irvine was cut short because of an injured player. C10