Looking for a Few Good Men

Steve Lavin, call Monty’s. Now.

Reserve a table for four. No, make that six.

Recruits, UCLA needs you.

Actually, the Bruins needed you Saturday. A more fitting description of you would be reinforcements because UCLA didn’t lose a game of basketball to Minnesota as much as a war of attrition. Appropriately for the Bruins, the site was the Alamodome.

Lavin, who thought everything that could happen to his team already had in his first year as a head coach, said Friday the Bruins had reached the NCAA Midwest Regional final because six of their first eight players were playing their best.

The two who weren’t, he said, were Kris Johnson, whose right ankle is so severely injured that he probably will undergo surgery this week, and Bob Myers, who has a better excuse. Lavin wouldn’t let him off the bench.

On Saturday, he had no choice but to use both. Johnson responded bravely, with 10 points and three rebounds in 24 minutes before fouling out with 1:19 left. Myers played three minutes, three overwhelmed minutes in which he was the tallest Bruin on the court at 6 feet 6.

He couldn’t replace Jelani McCoy. That’s my point, recruits. Nobody on the Bruin bench could.

McCoy, the 6-9 center UCLA desperately needed to counter Minnesota’s timber wolves inside, went to the dressing room with 3:54 remaining in the first half because of a bruised sternum, the same injury that sent him to the sideline in last weekend’s victory over Xavier.

“I’m not sure if he got hit or just started to swell up,” Lavin said.

I’m guessing it was the former. If the Gophers’ football team hit as hard as their basketball centers and power forwards, Lou Holtz never would have left. Lavin wasn’t being facetious when he referred to the territory they control under the baskets as “the line of scrimmage.”

Don’t expect sympathy from Minnesota Coach Clem Haskins. One of his excellent starting guards, Eric Harris, injured his shoulder in Thursday night’s victory over Clemson and wasn’t as effective as usual against the Bruins.

But Haskins has been recruiting. He has his so-called “Clem’s Gems,” and then he has a few diamonds in the rough who are ready when he calls. Harris is hurt? Charles Thomas and Quincy Lewis are better scorers, anyway. The 6-5, 270-pound Courtney James and the 6-9, 275-pound John Thomas have to pull into a weigh station? The 7-0, 275-pound Trevor Winter and the 6-8, 225-pound Charles Tarver take up almost as much space.

You don’t have to be Bob Knight to know the Gophers’ bench was the difference in their 80-72 victory. It’s simple math.

Minnesota’s four primary subs had 29 points and 13 rebounds, UCLA’s three had 13 points and three rebounds.

The other players UCLA brought watched the game from their courtside seats, resembling Jack Nicholson more than Toby Bailey.

Recruits, those can be your seats next season.

How did UCLA’s bench become so bare?

The easy answer for UCLA athletic department officials would be to blame Jim Harrick. They blame him for everything else.

After all, a program that wins the national championship is supposed to have a line of blue-chip recruits waiting outside its doors to get in. That didn’t happen at UCLA, which has only one showtime player, McCoy, to show for its 1995 national championship season.

But everyone seems to agree that Harrick isn’t to blame.

First, it wasn’t so easy to convince high school superstars they had a chance to play when Charles O’Bannon, Cameron Dollar, J.R. Henderson, Bailey and Johnson were returning from that championship season.

Second, a couple of big men who would have helped against Minnesota, omm’A Givens and Ike Nwankwo, transferred after last season.

Third, a coveted Corey Benjamin couldn’t meet UCLA’s academic requirements after finishing high school in Fontana last year and ended up on the All-Pacific 10 freshman team for Oregon State.

Another factor was Harrick’s five-year plan. He didn’t think he needed many recruits because he figured the Bruins had the players to succeed this season if they stayed healthy. That is, more or less, what happened until Saturday.

He then figured he would reload for next season by landing three or four members of an amazing Southern California recruiting class that includes Baron Davis, Chris Burgess, Schea Cotton and the Collins twins.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But two weeks before the season started, Harrick was fired. His new recruiting coordinator, Lavin, took over the team before he had a chance to recruit. The Collins twins opted for Stanford, Burgess for Duke, Cotton for Long Beach State and Davis looks as if he might enroll somewhere other than Westwood.

UCLA has three starters returning. Maybe. No one would be surprised if McCoy and Henderson declare for the NBA draft.

Recruits, the Bruins need you.

Expect a phone call this afternoon, an invitation to Monty’s.

“I’m going for a walk on the beach,” Lavin said when asked his plans for today. “Then I’m going to start recruiting.”