Bruins Get a Scare but Outlast Fresno

FRESNO —  UCLA Coach Jim Harrick knew his Bruins would be facing a fired-up Fresno State team Wednesday night.

He knew it didn’t matter that the Bulldogs were coming into the game with a 4-3 record, including a loss to Division-II Sonoma State and a 20-point loss to Wichita State in their last game.

“It’s worth 10 to 15 points for a school like Fresno to be playing at home against a school with UCLA’s tradition,” Harrick said.

Harrick knew what he was talking about. The 16th-ranked Bruins won, 74-65, to improve to 7-1, but not without getting a battle from the Bulldogs.

Fresno, which led through the first 14 minutes of the game but trailed, 42-31, at halftime, came back to lead early in the second half, much to the delight of the red-clad sellout crowd of 10,159 in Selland Arena.

With 12:33 left in the game, Trevor Wilson fouled Fresno’s Bijou Baly, a 6-foot-3 guard, as he drove to the basket on a fast break and picked up a goaltending call as well.

Baly made the free throw to give Fresno State a 48-46 lead.

But two consecutive baskets by Don MacLean, the first off a rebound of a missed free throw by teammate Gerald Madkins, gave the Bruins a 64-57 lead with just under five minutes left.

Still, the Bulldogs didn’t fade, as an inside shot by Chris Henderson made it 64-60.

Then MacLean, who led the Bruins with 25 points and nine rebounds, made a three-point play with 3:18 left to give the Bruins a 69-60 lead.

Fresno Coach Ron Adams, in his fourth season since replacing Boyd Grant, said: “We played real well for about 34-35 minutes. But their experience and our lack of experience showed.

“UCLA is a very good team, a very fluid team.”

The Bruins are off to their best start since the 1983-84 season, when they were 10-1.

UCLA freshman Tracy Murray came off the bench and had another good game, scoring 18 points, including 11 in the second half.

Murray, who averaged a state-record 44.3 points per game last year at Glendora High, has scored in double figures in four consecutive games.

MacLean has scored more than 20 points in the last three games. Wilson finished with 14 points and seven rebounds.

Henderson led Fresno State with 15 points, Pat Riddlesprigger had 14 and Baly and Wil Hooker scored 13 each.

This game, the latest episode of late-night college basketball, didn’t end until well after 11 p.m. because of a 9:15 p.m. start for television.

The Oklahoma-Loyola Marymount scorefest last Saturday night was a late-night ESPN game. ESPN will televise 15 games scheduled for 9 p.m. this season. Another 10 or so are scheduled for 8:30 starts.

The late-night games began two seasons ago after the Ohio Valley Conference asked ESPN what it needed to do to get on the air.

Soon thereafter, the conference started scheduling games to start at midnight, or 11 p.m., for some of the schools in the Central Time Zone. Ohio Valley schools played 12 late games the past two seasons on Friday and Saturday nights.

The first of these games was in 1987 between Eastern Kentucky and Murray State.

The Big Ten, despite protests from Indiana’s Bob Knight and others, also got in on the action, scheduling a few 9:30 games.

But with West Coast conferences such as the Pacific 10 and the Big West now agreeing to later starts, ESPN is scheduling fewer late-night games for Eastern schools.

Only two are on this year’s schedule. Middle Tennessee played Louisiana Tech at midnight Dec. 9, and Lefty Driesell’s James Madison team will play Richmond at midnight Feb. 2.

Loyola Marymount and LaSalle were scheduled for an 11:30 start at Philadelphia on Jan. 6, but because an ESPN boxing show that night fell through, the game will begin at 8 Eastern time.

Fresno State has another 9 p.m. start Jan. 15 when it plays at home against Nevada Las Vegas.

UCLA has two 8:30 games, at Stanford Jan. 18 and at USC Feb. 1.

“It’s not a case of almighty television telling the schools when to play,” ESPN spokesman Chris LaPlaca said. “It’s a case of the conferences and schools coming to us and saying, ‘We’ll play at such and such a time if you’ll televise our games.’

“It really works out pretty well for both parties. The schools get more exposure and we get live, late-night programming.”

Most late-night telecasts get only about a one rating (1% of households with ESPN), although Oklahoma-Loyola drew a 2.3, the best ever for a midnight game.

Wednesday night’s game wasn’t the only thing that ran behind schedule.

The Bruins arrived in Fresno about an hour later than scheduled Wednesday. They were delayed at Los Angeles International Airport by fog.

Fog was supposed to be a problem in Fresno, not Los Angeles.

But Wednesday was relatively clear compared to what this area has been experiencing in recent weeks.

“We were prepared to come up here by bus if necessary,” Harrick said.