Bruins Need to End Trend

The UCLA Bruins, their fading tournament hopes given a jump start with an impressive victory Thursday over Oregon, today get the chance to give all those gains back against Oregon State, an opportunity they rarely have been able to pass on before.

A season of inconsistent play and focus has delivered such memorable back-to-back performances as beating Purdue/losing to Washington and getting trounced by USC/winning at North Carolina. To continue that trend now would be as critical a setback as the victory over tournament-bound Oregon was a windfall.

“It’s not specifically one thing,” said Sean Farnham, who probably will start at power forward for the second game in a row ahead of Jerome Moiso. “We can’t all set our alarms for 8 o’clock and hit the switch. We can’t all eat the same thing for breakfast. It’s ‘Have we reached the level where we can play 40 minutes two games in a row?’

“I think we have. This team has always responded with our backs against the wall. I guess we just wanted to make sure our backs were really against the wall.”

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The NCAA Subcommittee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement, a five-member panel of Division I athletic department officials, heard UCLA’s appeal on the JaRon Rush matter Friday but did not render a decision.

Three Bruin officials--Athletic Director Pete Dalis, Faculty Athletic Representative Donald Morrison and Associate Athletic Director Betsy Stephenson--took part in the 90-minute conference call. Rush also participated.

The school is not contesting the 15-game suspension the NCAA handed down for Rush’s relationship with agent Jerome Stanley. At issue is the other 29 games--through sometime around the midway point of 2000-01, depending on how many postseason games the Bruins play this spring--a penalty UCLA considered severe.

A ruling on the appeal is expected Monday.

TODAY

Oregon State, 3

Fox Sports Net

* Site--Pauley Pavilion.

* Radio--KXTA (1150).

* Records--Bruins 14-11, 5-8; Beavers 12-13, 4-10.

* Update--Oregon State has lost seven of its last nine, the only victories coming last week with a home sweep of the Washington schools.

* Tickets--(310) UCLA-WIN