UCLA Is Left All Duked Out : College basketball: Bruins are outscored in the final minutes, 16-4, and lose to the No. 1 Blue Devils, 75-65. It is their third consecutive defeat.

Top-ranked Duke was ripe Sunday at Pauley Pavilion, but UCLA couldn’t reach high enough to pick off the Blue Devils. Instead, the Bruins walked away with a third consecutive loss.

Duke, playing without one of its best players and trailing at halftime for the first time this season, made 58.6% of its shots during the second half, dominated the last three minutes and defeated the fourth-ranked Bruins, 75-65, before a record Pauley Pavilion crowd of 13,023.

If the game said a lot about UCLA, as captain Gerald Madkins had suggested last week that it would, it said as much about Duke.

“It says they’re No. 1,” UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said.

In front of a crowd that had looked forward to this game since last summer, the defending NCAA champions overcame the absence of Grant Hill, their No. 3 scorer and No. 2 rebounder, who was back home on campus in Durham, N.C., after suffering a sprained ankle during practice Tuesday.

And they overcame a UCLA team that was determined to turn things around after consecutive losses to Notre Dame and USC.

The Bruins’ Shon Tarver suffered a sprained ankle and had to leave the game during the first half. Tyus Edney fell hard on his tailbone and had to leave during the second. Mitchell Butler bit through his lip and later needed stitches to close the cut. Don MacLean also required stitches--for a cut in his right knee. Tarver and Edney eventually returned to action.

“The game had good intensity,” said Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, adding that he was “very proud” of his team.

The Bruins were proud, too.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” MacLean said.

And Madkins said: “We’ve got a lot more guts than people give us credit for. We played hard. That’s all you can ask of anybody--to give a maximum effort. And we did. I hope nobody can claim that we have no heart.”

But it wasn’t enough.

Despite 26.8% shooting, the Bruins led at halftime, 29-24, because their defensive pressure was the equal of Duke’s.

Duke shot 33.3% during the half and took one offensive rebound.

After halftime, however, the Blue Devils were more efficient, opening the second half with a 12-4 run led by senior center Christian Laettner, who finished with game highs of 29 points and 13 rebounds.

The score then remained close until the final minutes.

It was 61-61 with about three minutes to play when MacLean, surprised by a pass from Tracy Murray, shuffled his feet in the lane and was called for traveling. At the other end, Laettner stepped out to take a pass from Bobby Hurley and made a three-point shot from the left wing.

Butler then lost control of the ball when, as he was about to pass to MacLean, MacLean fell down. Duke’s Antonio Lang picked it up and drove for a layup that put the Blue Devils ahead, 66-61, with 2:13 to play.

MacLean scored on a hook to pull UCLA to within 66-63, but he was burned at the other end by Brian Davis, who drove around him for a layup.

The next time down, MacLean missed a three-point shot.

Two free throws by Davis, who scored 19 points and took 11 rebounds, gave the Blue Devils a 70-63 lead with 1:21 to play.

After Tarver threw away a pass, the crowd headed out.

“We just didn’t execute down the stretch,” said MacLean, who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, but failed to shoot 50% for a fourth consecutive game, making only six of 17 shots. “They’re a good defensive team and probably caused some of it, but we didn’t execute.”

UCLA made 46.4% of its shots after halftime but shot only 34.8% overall, its worst shooting of the season, and failed to make a three-point shot for the first time in 35 games, missing all 14 of its attempts.

And the Bruins (21-4) were outscored down the stretch, 16-4.

Duke is 23-2 and still No. 1.

“We had a very good attitude today,” Laettner said. “We thought of it as an NCAA (tournament) game, a Sweet 16 game, possibly a Final Four game. We hit some big shots and were able to stop them in the last three minutes. We’re still hungry for another championship.”

UCLA is hungry, period.

Bruin Notes

Tracy Murray led UCLA with 22 points, but missed all five of his three-point shots for the second time in three games. . . . In UCLA’s last five games, Mitchell Butler has made only 26.8% of his shots, missing all 15 of his three-point attempts. Don MacLean has made 38.6% of his shots in UCLA’s last four games. . . . UCLA missed only one of 18 free throws, its last.

UCLA and Duke will play again next February at Durham, N.C., where the Blue Devils haven’t lost a nonconference game since 1983. . . . UCLA Coach Jim Harrick is 1-8 against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents, 0-3 against Duke and Coach Mike Krzyzewski. At Pepperdine, Harrick’s teams were eliminated from the NCAA tournament by North Carolina State in 1983, Duke in 1985 and Maryland in 1986. At UCLA, his teams lost in the NCAA tournament to North Carolina in 1989 and Duke in 1990. . . . UCLA has failed to make a three-point shot in a game only four times in 121 games under Harrick, only once in its last 35 games.