No Fun, Just Games for the Bruins : Only Sights UCLA Players Will See Are St. John’s, Temple

NEW YORK — This is strictly a business trip for the UCLA Bruins, who find themselves only a couple of Reggie Miller jump shots from Madison Avenue, which probably isn’t a bad place for a team to discover whether it’s as good as its recent advertising.

Are these the new, improved Bruins? Do we run them up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes?

Better wait until they’ve finished playing St. John’s today at Madison Square Garden and, after that, see how their national ranking holds up against Temple Monday night at Philadelphia. The Bruins may be undefeated in three games so far, but they’ve been able to stay home to do that.

UCLA’s first two road games are their next two, starting today, and that may be why Coach Walt Hazzard wants the Bruins to keep their minds on business. Hazzard has gone out of his way to make sure his players don’t go anywhere out of their way.

“We’re going to play two basketball games, that’s all,” he said, adding that his players would get “a very quick tour” of New York.

When will that be?

“On the bus on our way out of town,” he said.

Hazzard listed the team activities.

“Eat dinner at 8 p.m. and go to bed,” he said.

What about seeing Times Square?

“They can look out the window in their rooms,” he said.

Kevin Walker, a freshman, has never been here before. He said the coaching staff has promised to make sure that the players do not miss any of the exciting action on the streets.

“Coach (Sidney) Wicks said he’d tell us how much fun he’s having,” Walker said.

In keeping with UCLA’s low profile here, practice Friday was held on a court in the basement of an office building. Hazzard wants to keep his players’ minds on the games, not on the sidewalks. Out there, he knows, there is a lot that can happen to young, impressionable basketball players.

He knows because of what once happened to him.

The Lakers were in New York for a game in 1964, Hazzard’s rookie season, and he and a teammate were out walking when a man ran up to them. He said he would sell them a dozen dress shirts for $25. Hazzard’s teammate said he wore a size 16 neck and a 34-inch sleeve, so the man went to his car and brought back a box.

The vendor took a nice-looking dress shirt out of the box. It was a size 16 neck with a 34-inch sleeve. Hazzard’s teammate approved and paid the man $25. The shirt was replaced on top of what appeared to be a stack of shirts in the box, and the man left.

“Just then, we look underneath the top shirt and there were 11 collars,” Hazzard said. “That was a hell of a shirt for $25.”

The moral?

“You’ve got to watch out for New York,” he said. “The pace is quick.”

The Bruins have been setting a fast pace themselves this season, but they are going up against another undefeated team in 5-0 St. John’s. The Redmen have already proven that they can run up a score quickly.

Coach Lou Carnesecca lost two starters, 6-5 guard Ron Rowan and 6-8 All-American forward Walter Berry, from last year’s 31-5 team, but St. John’s has already scored more than 100 points in two games this season. Three starters are back, the best of them 6-6 senior forward Willie Glass. The others are 6-9 forward Shelton Jones and 6-3 senior guard Mark Jackson.

Carnesecca’s center is Marco Baldi, a 6-11, 245-pound sophomore from Aosta, Italy, who has also been a center of controversy.

Baldi was forced to sit out both of St. John’s NCAA tournament games after it became known he had received some financial support from a team in Milan, Italy, while attending several high schools in the United States, one of which was Irvine Woodbridge.

The NCAA originally suspended Baldi for 16 games, then extended the suspension for a full season. But after St. John’s appealed in October, all penalties against Baldi were dropped.

The UCLA game will be St. John’s first this season at Madison Square Garden, where the Redmen went undefeated in three games last season. The Bruins are trying to avoid what happened to Georgetown, Seton Hall and Syracuse in the Garden last season.

“This is really going to be tough,” Hazzard said. “We may get to see how we respond to adversity. Our schedule is not easy. We don’t play an easy one. Those (easy) kinds of games can do a couple of things. You gain confidence and it makes the coach’s record look good.”

Miller’s right ankle, which he sprained before the Pepperdine game, slowed him during practice this week, but he is expected to play against St. John’s. Miller is averaging 27 points and 8 rebounds and is shooting 58%.

On defense, the Bruins have allowed their opponents to shoot just 41.8% this season, but Hazzard was quick to point out that it was all done at Pauley Pavilion.

“We’re on the road now,” he said. “Things are different out here.”

Bruin Notes Game time for St. John’s is 11:30 a.m. PST. Monday night’s game time against Temple is at 5 p.m. PST. Both games will be broadcast on KMPC (710) and shown on tape-delay by Prime Ticket, which will carry the St. John’s game at 4:30 p.m. and the Temple game at 8:30 p.m. . . . St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca was the Big East coach of the year in 1986. Now in his 19th season at St. John’s, Carnesecca’s coaching record is 406-136. The last two seasons, Carnesecca has coached college basketball’s player of the year--Chris Mullin and Walter Berry. . . . Last season at Pauley, St. John’s defeated UCLA, 69-65, when Berry had 23 points and 12 rebounds. Pooh Richardson had 15 points and 10 assists for UCLA. . . . Richardson is averaging 8.7 assists this season.