Bruins Keep Their Center --for Season

What once might have been rationalized as a fact of life in college basketball is on the verge of turning into an exodus at UCLA, where, a day after two key front-court players said they were casting their lot with the pros, a third, Dan Gadzuric, announced he would be doing the same after next season.

The best of them all, freshman Jason Kapono, has not said he’ll be leaving early, but he hasn’t said he isn’t, either, so the pressure mounts on Coach Steve Lavin for a major recruiting haul a year from now.

Starting power forward Jerome Moiso and JaRon Rush, who might have been the backup at both forward spots if he had not had to sit out a 24-game NCAA suspension, are gone. They announced that Monday and said Tuesday that they plan to hire agents by early next week, which will bar them from returning to college even if they have a change of heart.

They spoke at a news conference at Pauley Pavilion, after which Gadzuric, the starting center, said he would stay one more season and then make himself available for the NBA draft. If Kapono has already left or leaves at the same time, the Bruin frontline will be gutted.

“I made the decision so I don’t have to deal with all that stuff about being stressed out--should I stay or should I go,” said Gadzuric, who watched as his roommate, Moiso, sweated out his future, sometimes with detrimental on-court results. “Luckily, I’ve made my decision.”

So 2000-01, his junior season, will be his last at UCLA.

“Yeah,” said Gadzuric, who in his freshman season was hampered by tendinitis in his knees. “Definitely. I’m going to work hard and work on getting my knees stronger. They’re feeling good already.”

So Moiso and Rush are out, Gadzuric is packing, guard Ray Young is coming off a poor season and forward Matt Barnes, Moiso’s projected replacement at power forward, is planning to delay the start of his basketball season to play football.

Those five players made up the recruiting class considered by many to be the best in the country. In the two seasons they spent together--Gadzuric battling injuries as a freshman and Rush battling the NCAA as a sophomore--they won two NCAA tournament games.

If Gadzuric follows through on his plan to leave next spring, he will be doing so just as the core of the backcourt, seniors-to-be Earl Watson, Ryan Bailey and Rico Hines, runs out of eligibility. And if Kapono goes, either now or in another year, the Bruins will have a massive hole, so dependent have they become on his versatile game.

Moiso was Gadzuric’s backup at center, but now UCLA doesn’t have a true center to play behind Gadzuric and his tender knees, and it doesn’t have anyone in the program in position to replace Gadzuric for good.

The tallest Bruin of 2000-01 besides Gadzuric? T.J. Cummings, who is 6 feet 9, but who is also still attending Homewood-Flossmoor High in Illinois.

The second tallest, besides Gadzuric? Josiah Johnson, who is 6-8, but who is at Montclair Prep in Van Nuys.

If Barnes stays with football, not a sure thing because Coach Bob Toledo might not even play him, one of the two freshmen, the only signees so far, probably will be the starting power forward on opening night. The other could be the backup. The current Bruins have only three players taller than 6-5--Gadzuric at 6-11 and Kapono and Barnes at 6-7.

That Cummings and Johnson arrive when the need for forwards is great is part of the good news for the Bruins. The other is that they are loaded with scholarships for the high school seniors of 2001. And that looms as one of the best recruiting classes in generations, highlighted locally by 7-2 Tyson Chandler of Compton Dominguez.

“We recruited with an understanding that there would be a strong possibility we would lose some players to the NBA this year,” Lavin said. “One of the main reasons we signed T.J. Cummings and Josiah Johnson was the awareness that Jerome and JaRon could leave.

“Either way, we would have recruited them, because we have a lot of confidence in them. But if their leaving means counting on Matt Barnes and T.J. and Josiah to produce immediately, then that’s what we will have to do.”