Lavin Is Banking on Big Payoff

Upstate New York in winter is no place for a team from Los Angeles, but UCLA today sacrifices rest and preparation for the Pacific 10 Conference stretch drive in the name of money and national-television exposure, facing Syracuse and hoping for a payoff beyond the bank account.

Such trips are hardly unprecedented--Arizona went to Louisiana State and Arizona State went to North Carolina State two weeks ago. But this is the Bruins’ second one-game trip to the East during the time most teams use as a hiatus, the week the conference schedule only includes the area rival.

Of course, UCLA has opportunities most teams don’t, being a big-name program from a major television market. The networks love the Bruins for weekends without football, and the Bruins love to accept the invitations because it means about $60,000 per game, the chance to stay in recruits’ faces and the chance to get better against quality competition. So they play USC on Jan. 12 and board a plane the next day for North Carolina with no regrets, and then they play USC on Wednesday and gladly fly to Syracuse on Friday, only to turn around 48 hours later.

Said UCLA Coach Steve Lavin: “Ask me again Sunday after the game, I may have a different answer. But I think it’s a good thing for us to go back and play these games.”

Good thing, because there will be more of them. The Bruins play at DePaul next February and are close to finalizing a home-and-home series with a Big East team that will mean another long trip for one game in the middle of the 2002 conference season.

TONIGHT

at Syracuse

10 a.m. PST, Channel 2

* Site--Carrier Dome.

* Radio--KXTA (1150).

* Records--Bruins 13-8, Orangemen 19-2.

* Update--Syracuse opened 19-0 and reached No. 4 in the rankings this week, then lost two in a row, against Seton Hall and at Louisville.