UCLA Eludes Tough Waves

UCLA used a 17-4 run in the second half and a last-second disputed call by a referee to avoid overtime and potentially a worse fate, edging Pepperdine Tuesday night and even sounding guilty about it.

Well, maybe a little guilty.

“We can say it was controversial,” Jerome Moiso said after the 23rd-ranked Bruins escaped with a 68-66 victory before 8,244 at Pauley Pavilion. “But a game is a game. We lost games like that last year.”

Not like that.

The Waves deserved to get at least another five minutes to try and finish what they started by building the eight-point lead with 11 1/2 minutes remaining, but officials ruled that Craig Lewis’ tip from two feet out, off the missed three-pointer by David Lalazarian, came late. Television replays showed the ball left Lewis’ hands with 0.1 remaining, which means it should have counted.

It also means the play was so close that it hardly amounted to an inexplicable error by the official, identified as a Pacific 10 Conference executive as Ruben Ramos, to wave it off, especially since it came without the same benefit as fans and media had when they crowded around the Fox Sports West 2 table at midcourt to view several replays. As if the Waves were feeling very understanding of such things.

“Obviously we’re extremely disappointed that we lost the game,” Pepperdine Coach Jan van Breda Kolff said. “There’s 12 guys I just had to leave in the locker room right now that are very disappointed. . . . Our team is devastated right now.”

Among other things. Lalazarian, whose three-pointer from the right baseline with about two seconds remaining could have delivered the win, chased after the referees in the confusion that immediately followed the horn. When he was stopped by security personnel from continuing to follow one beyond the baseline, Lalazarian found another official and yelled something in his face.

“It was an emotional reaction,” Lalazarian said. “I thought the shot was good. But we had plenty of chances before that.”

It’s just that enough of them didn’t go in--the Waves (8-4) shot 35.9% and got their last field goal with 3:43 remaining. That gave them a 65-63 lead, before UCLA (7-3) tied it with 1:28 and Pepperdine went ahead again with a free throw with 1:02 left.

The Bruins, coming off an overtime win over South Florida, got what became the winning points when Moiso banked in a left-handed two-footer with 43 seconds remaining, making it 67-66. Moiso added one free throw with 11.6 seconds to go, the last of his game-high 15 points, for the two-point edge.

Pepperdine’s first chance for the win was a three-pointer by Brandon Armstrong with about six seconds remaining that bounced off the rim. But the ball went out of bounds off a Bruin. Given another chance, the Waves again played for the victory instead of overtime, relying on Lalazarian’s three-pointer. It went long.

Lewis controlled on the other side, about two feet out on the left. His shot went up. Van Breda Kolff said he looked at the red light as Lewis released, the visual signal that time had expired. It hadn’t illuminated.

But Ramos’ call said differently. The Bruins said they were, uh, happy with the win.

“It was too hard for me to call from the sidelines,” UCLA Coach Steve Lavin said. “I didn’t have a good angle and I had the emotion of the game, so I’m not the most impartial person. At that time, I felt it was definitely after the buzzer.

“But when calmer heads prevail and I get a chance to look at film, I may think it was before. Thank God this isn’t the NFL, where you have those challenges.”

UCLA jumped out to a 10-2 lead, then got outscored, 35-22, the rest of the first half, and it’s not like the Bruins couldn’t see it coming. It looked a lot like the final two games of the Pearl Harbor Classic, apparently for the benefit of their fans who didn’t go to Oahu and didn’t see the poor showings against Colorado State and South Florida anywhere because of the absence of television coverage. And, it was Pepperdine, after all.

Not necessarily the Waves in particular, although that was significant since they arrived 8-3, with two of the losses coming to current No. 4 Auburn and current No. 10 Kansas and one of the victories by 10 over the same Colorado State team that just beat UCLA. The additional concern for the Bruins was that it was an area team.

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