It’s Just a UCLA Rout

Chaos reigned Wednesday night--and, in a strange, scattered way, so did Toby Bailey.

Bounding around the court like a 6-foot-5 kangaroo, banging into random Trojans and flinging jumpers from all angles, Bailey’s high-intensity, high-wire act was a show all by itself.

In a performance that matched the game’s scrambled texture and that included a game-high 24 points, seven rebounds and countless wild flights to the basket, Bailey led UCLA to a sweeping 82-60 victory over cross-town rival USC before a record crowd of 13,382 at Pauley Pavilion.

“That’s my game,” Bailey said with a crooked smile, “running on the break, kind of out of control all the time.”

It was the sixth consecutive victory over USC for the 17th-ranked Bruins, who raised their record to 16-7 and 11-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference--1 1/2 games in front of second-place California and two in front of fourth-place USC, which was knocked out of realistic contention for the league title.

In a fact not unnoticed by the trio, UCLA’s junior class of Bailey, J.R. (Nostradamus) Henderson and Kris Johnson has never lost to USC, which dropped its second consecutive game and fell to 14-9 and 9-5.

This game was decided with Cameron Dollar and Henderson, who sparked emotions this week by casually implying that he wasn’t worried about the Trojans, in foul trouble, and Charles O’Bannon on the bench after a cut opened over his eye.

“It was frustrating--I didn’t have a chance to really play in the game I was talking trash in,” said Henderson, who played only 17 minutes after uttering his famous “they’re just SC” comments. “But I noticed from the beginning that everybody was getting into the game, it wasn’t like the same old SC-UCLA game.

“It was kind of exciting, people brought signs and were chanting my so-called comments. It was just a funner game.”

Which left just Bailey vs. just SC. And he won.

Bailey, who broke out of mini-slump Saturday with 20 points against Arizona State, made only three of his first 11 shots, then buried six of his final eight, including four three-pointers.

Motivated by a Daily Bruin analysis that gave UCLA the advantage at every position over the Trojans--except at Bailey’s spot, where Stais Boseman got the nod--Bailey kept firing and the ball started going down.

After fighting back from an early eight-point deficit to lead the Trojans by one point at the half, 29-28, Bailey scored 11 fast points as UCLA went on a 25-8 run to break the game open at 54-36 with 11:08 left.

“With all the great players we have, I don’t want to be out there shooting it like crazy,” Bailey said. “When those guys were on the bench, I kind of felt like I didn’t have the red light any more.”

Bailey had the Daily Bruin article posted to his locker before the game, then tore it down immediately after it was over. The article, Bailey said, was symptomatic of people who don’t see that he is giving up his scoring to be more of a team player this year.

“People that know basketball know I’m doing what it takes to win,” Bailey said. “I thought people understood that I can still be a scorer--I guess you have to prove it to people once in a while.”

USC closed to within 11 points, 71-60, with 2:07 left after Jarvis Turner was fouled by O’Bannon on a layup. But Turner missed the subsequent free throw, Henderson found Dollar cutting to the basket for a layup, and the game wouldn’t get closer.

Center David Crouse led the Trojans with 18 points, but point forward Rodrick Rhodes had another quiet game, not making his first basket until 8:42 remained. He had four points on one-of-six shooting. The Trojans made only 25 of their 68 shot attempts--36.8%.

Revved up by Henderson’s words, the two teams started the game geared up, bumping hard and barely making a basket.

“We really did some things I hadn’t seen them do all season in that first half,” UCLA Coach Steve Lavin said.

How bad was it? USC missed 13 of its last 15 shot attempts, and crawled into halftime having scored only seven points in the last 11:58 of the half and shooting 12 for 33 (36.4%).

But the Trojans still shot it better than UCLA, which made only 10 of 29 (34.5%) in the first half. USC had a 21-13 lead after eight minutes, but then UCLA started getting out on the break, Bailey started rumbling, and the stampede was on.

“We played decently in the first half, but you could feel it slipping away a little bit at the end of the first half,” USC Coach Henry Bibby said. “They got started running, making easy baskets, and you can’t let a team like that do that. I said before that they’ve got five NBA players, and that’s not a joke.”

* RANDY HARVEY: When Dollar was able to play, he made a big difference. C2

* TROJANS: Bibby looks for his team to regroup from two one-sided losses in a row. C4