UCLA Gets Stops It Needs to Beat USC

It was the dazed vs. the confused on Wednesday night, and neither looked much like a winner when it was over.

In a strange, overtime game that evoked just about every nightmare UCLA ever had and gave USC every chance to beat the Bruins for the first time in four years, the Bruins needed all the bounces and all the late plays to win, 82-75, before 7,167 at the Sports Arena.

From the opening listlessness to the mid-game panic to the continued offensive chaos, it was a game 12th-ranked UCLA might have deserved to lose more than any it has played in years.

Air balls. Forced passes. Lazy defense. Freshman foibles. Senior struggles. And the weirdest: Toby Bailey, of all people, having problems with his coach and getting benched for the first time in 101 games?

This one had it all for UCLA, which, playing for the first time since center Jelani McCoy resigned from the team, continued its apparently unstoppable emotional and literal slump toward March.

“We don’t feel like it’s turmoil time,” said senior forward J.R. Henderson, who had 20 points and nine rebounds in 44 minutes of action. “All that ‘Bruins in ruins’ stuff is a bunch of bull. We’re just trying to get better. With all the adversity we’ve faced, we just want to get better.”

The Bruins missed McCoy on Wednesday, of course, and they missed jump shots, missed defensive assignments and missed passing connections for all 45 minutes of distraction.

Most of all, they missed Bailey, who became the most unusual and the latest Bruin controversy after an argument with Lavin in Tuesday’s practice took him out of the starting lineup.

“Now I feel like I’m part of the team,” Bailey said with a broad postgame smile, after starting the game missing his first seven shots, but ending it by making a handful of huge plays at the end of regulation and in overtime.

The Trojans, losers of nine of their last 10 games, shot woefully--until a late hot streak by Gary Johnson, who scored 15 of his 19 points after halftime--and didn’t particularly play solid defense, but didn’t roll over and die.

So, that put the onus on UCLA to actually play decent basketball, and it almost was too much to ask.

“It was hard to play with any emotion after the week we just had,” said freshman point guard Baron Davis, who fouled out with several minutes left in regulation on a charging call. “We were just drained.”

But in overtime, the athleticism and the leadership of the team’s three seniors was enough. Barely enough to improve UCLA to 20-5, and 10-4 in conference play. It dropped the Trojans to 7-17, 3-11.

“We just needed one guy to make a shot,” said Trojan Coach Henry Bibby, whose team made only four of its 25 three-point tries.

Lavin kept Bailey out of the game for the first five-plus minutes, but Bailey saved him, scoring UCLA’s last six points in regulation and scoring four points, with two assists and a rebound, in the extra period.

“That’s just Toby being a player--making the big plays when he has to, despite having some tough times,” Henderson said.

Throughout the first half, with Bailey out of the game and in it, the Bruins played like a team that did not have its feet under it--or the energy to muster much of a fight.

Luckily for UCLA, the Trojans were hardly motoring smoothly, and it became a match of two obviously awkward teams, tossing up wild jump shots and only occasionally hitting the rim.

Freshman Rico Hines started for Bailey, who did not come into the game until the 14:25 mark in the first half, with UCLA leading, 12-11.

With USC zinging the ball crazily around the court, the Bruins did manage to pull out to a 22-15 lead midway through the half.

But, while the Trojans put together a few decent offensive possessions, UCLA went into an offensive spiral, throwing together one of the most inept and numbing stretches of the season, full of forced timeouts, strange passes and air balls.

Thanks to the Trojan offensive struggles, though, the Bruins had a 33-30 lead at halftime.

UCLA held the lead for most of the second half, thanks to a jolting seven-point flurry by Davis, who made two steals, got fouled once, and put down a massive slam dunk, a soft lay-up and three free throws in the opening 1:17 of the half. That Davis run gave the Bruins a 40-30 lead.

It took USC another few minutes to put up any points in the second half, and UCLA had as much as a 13-point lead.

But, the Bruins couldn’t keep up the pace, with all the other Trojan shooters stone-cold, Johnson got hot, making a 28-foot three-pointer that brought USC to within four, 58-54, with about seven minutes left to play.

It was a late, emotional Trojan rally, fueled by Johnson’s bombardment and Jarvis Turner’s savvy inside play, that caught the Bruins and sent it into overtime--UCLA’s first of the season, USC’s third.

The overmatched Trojans grabbed the lead, 67-66, with 1:45 left in regulation, then Kevin Augustine’s three-pointer gave them a four-point lead, 70-66, with 1:15 left.

But Bailey scored the last four points of regulation, to tie it at 70, and USC was denied in a last possession--first when Augustine’s drive attempt was blocked by Henderson, then by Spanich’s desperation three-point miss.

UCLA got the jump on USC in overtime, scoring on its first three possessions to take a 75-72 lead.

With the Trojan offense stalled after Turner (who scored 17 points and had eight rebounds and five assists) fouled out barely a minute into overtime, the Bruins took a 77-72 lead with 2:16 left on a layup by Henderson--off a Bailey assist--and held on tight for the victory.

“The bottom line is we made the defensive stops when we had to,” said senior Kris Johnson, who had 19 points, “and we won the game. That’s all we were concerned about.”