Egos and Attitude Take Beating as Bruins Seek Right Chemistry

Last season, it was fine-tuning. This season, it was more like experimental theater: accidental brilliance, frequent pratfalls and the barest outlines of future glory.

UCLA played 10 preconference games, and, tonight, as the 7-3 Bruins open up Pacific 10 play at Spokane, Wash., against 7-1 Washington State, what did it all mean?

“It was just games,” said junior forward Charles O’Bannon. “Just games to get under our belt.”

Forget Maui and the 19-point blown lead at Lawrence, Kan., and everything around them. The true measure of this young, talented and tempestuous team will come in the next two months--in such hothouses as Arizona’s McKale Center and Stanford’s Maples Pavilion and in Pauley Pavilion.

The nonconference season filled time and answered a few questions, but UCLA’s defense of last season’s national title begins for real (and for better or worse) tonight. Here are five reasons why:

1. It’s hard to play ferocious man-to-man defense when you’re busy patting yourself on the back.

Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and George Zidek, who had experienced so much disappointment in their careers, saved UCLA so many times last season with clutch shots, rebounds and length-of-the-court dashes, the younger Bruins, puffed up by success, apparently took it for granted that they could assume the roles.

After all, weren’t they on every preseason magazine cover in existence, worshiped in Westwood and, even though five of their top seven players were freshmen or sophomores, ranked No. 4 in the nation heading into this season?

“I think they believed that kind of stuff, especially when we went to Hawaii,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said. “Imagine 18 to 22 years old and that happening to you? They’ve received so much adulation, they probably believed they were a little bit better than they really were, expecting teams to lay down for you. ‘We’re UCLA, this team can’t beat us. . . .’

“But we’ve got all that straightened out. We got humbled in Hawaii.”

The focus of this season changed dramatically in the Maui Classic, when the Bruins looked scattered and nervous during losses to Santa Clara and Vanderbilt sandwiched around a tense victory over Wisconsin. Then UCLA was obliterated by Kansas in the second half, and suddenly, the defending champions were 2-3.

The season-long party had turned into a test of endurance--and character.

“Well, it’s obvious that I guess we took some things for granted,” Charles O’Bannon said. “Coming into the year, we thought that we can just play the way we played last year and we’ll win.”

2. Harrick’s job is not in jeopardy.

In the recent past--even last season--the Bruin preconference schedule was about building respect, self-confidence and a high ranking as the conference cranked up and the grueling tests against Arizona and the rest came into view.

And it was about making sure UCLA got those 20 victories to keep the fire-the-coach talk down to a murmur.

“I’ve always worried about the preseason more than I really should,” Harrick said. “When I was at Pepperdine, I never worried about the preseason. The preseason was nonexistent to me.

“But, you come to UCLA and you’re very conscious of winning every game and being ranked and all that kind of stuff. And I always have been. But this year, I’m trying to build this team for the league and get it ready to perform in conference play.”

Instead of prodding his players early, Harrick was relaxed during the hard patch this season--even joking with the referees at South Bend, Ind., in the middle of UCLA’s baffling scoreless first five minutes against Notre Dame.

He starts a freshman center--Jelani McCoy--who has been a shot-blocking wunderkind and a surprisingly consistent inside force on offense too; he has inserted sophomore Kris Johnson into the lineup as a guard, and though you wouldn’t imagine he could handle the defensive responsibilities, Harrick chuckles when he imagines smaller guards trying to defend Johnson down low.

Put a banner up, and you can look further down the road than you ever allowed yourself before.

3. You don’t find a go-to guy when you’re playing Stephen F. Austin or Cal State Fullerton or shooting airballs against Vanderbilt.

This season, the strongest candidates to replace O’Bannon as the man were sophomores Toby Bailey, the title game superstar; J.R. Henderson and Charles O’Bannon. The Bruins spent the first four or five games figuring out that, maybe, none of them were quite ready for the responsibility.

“Everyone in their mind may feel like, ‘Well, I’m the guy who’s going to replace him,”’ assistant coach Lorenzo Romar said. “And we have several players on this team who potentially could. So you can’t fault them for thinking they’re the one that’s going to emerge as the go-to guy.”

So far, Henderson, though he is averaging fewer points than O’Bannon or Bailey, is the most dependable set-play scorer. But in the five games since Bailey has moved to the starting point guard spot, he has made 18 of his 30 three-point attempts. Last season, he made 20 three-pointers all season, in 73 tries.

“I think we have a couple of go-to guys,” Bailey said.

4. You find leaders in times of trouble--not on magazine covers.

The leader is Cameron Dollar, period. And if UCLA hadn’t gone 2-3 to start the season and started searching for chemistry, maybe the Bruins wouldn’t have found that out until it was too late.

Dollar, the reserve who saved the national title game against Arkansas when Edney couldn’t play, went down himself this year because of a couple of injured pinkies. So, what happened when he went out of the starting lineup and was only put in when UCLA desperately needed a cool hand on the court?

UCLA went 5-0. So, for now, he starts the game on the bench even though the injuries have largely healed.

“Think about it, one of your captains succumbing his starting role and playing a role off the bench, and yet still leading the team,” O’Bannon said. “Everyone realizes it’s his junior year with a chance to go to the NBA after next year, and that he’s coming off the bench. That says a lot for him, personally. It’s surprising for me as well.”

5. UCLA had to find a rallying point.

What’s a team to do when everybody’s praising it? UCLA went out and lost.

Whether it will be effective when Arizona’s Reggie Geary is penetrating and dishing to Miles Simon or when Arizona State’s Ron Riley is launching another three, the Bruins believe they found their unhappy place.

“I think the Kansas game will prove to be the big turning point because putting them down by [almost] 20 in the first half, we showed we could play against anybody in the nation,” Bailey said. “Then, we just had to learn how to play with a big lead.”

Though none of the Bruins are saying they’re ready to win a national title, and though the coaching staff consistently points to next season--with the top seven players returning--the potential for a relatively deep run into March is there. They just had to fumble around some to find it.

“We don’t lose those games early, the perception would still be there [that they automatically were a top-five team],” Dollar said. “There’s no looking inside the structure, so you don’t fix up the foundation and somewhere down the road, that’s where it breaks down.

“You lose earlier, you look inside your team, you shore up everything, you get the foundation properly set. So now you get to the stretch run, there aren’t any loose things on the ship.”

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick

A Fresh Start

A look at the records of Pacific 10 schools going into conference play, which starts tonight.

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SCHOOL W L Pct. Arizona 10 1 .909 Washington State 7 1 .875 Washington 7 2 .778 Stanford 6 2 .750 UCLA 7 3 .700 USC 7 4 .636 Oregon 7 4 .636 Arizona State 5 3 .625 California 5 3 .625 Oregon State 2 6 .250

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