-OKLAHOMA CITY-Out-
played, outcoached,
outhustled, outmuscled,
outmanned, outplanned and out-
rageously bad, UCLA is out of
the NCAA basketball tourna-
ment and Jim Harrick is in for
some serious flak.
The coach has to be held
accountable for Friday's fright -
ful first half and 112-102 ouster
by Tulsa, no matter why it
happened, no matter what else
happened this season. Harrick
already knows what a lot of
people are thinking, saying,
"The players got 21 wins and
the coaches got seven losses.
That's generally the way things
go."
This was no ordinary loss.
Throughout 1,912 UCLA bas -
ketball games over 75 years,
only once has any opponent
scored as many points as Tulsa
did. That opponent was Stanford
and that 1987 game required two
overtimes.
This one took 40 minutes.
It began with 20 minutes of
the most pathetic basketball
UCLA has ever played. It ended
with Kevin Dempsey outscoring
three of UCLA's starters, with
Tyus Edney throwing towels
and tantrums and with Ed
O'Bannon saying how embar-
rassed he was to be out there.
There was a moment when the
score was 46- 17 and it actually
appeared that Tulsa might have
to eventually take pity on UCLA
and bench its starters so as not
to run up the score.
Hard to tell what Harrick
could have done, short of head-
butting his players. Nothing he did
worked.
-
His job might not be in jeopardy,
but his popularity is in double
jeopardy and headed for final jeop -
ardy.
"I can imagine," he said.
UCLA scored 102 points and was
never in the game. Repeat: UCLA
scored 102 points and was NEVER IN THE
GAME.
Each of the coaches insisted that
there was a turning point when the
Bruins could have cut the differ-
ence to 10 points and instead fouled
their way into falling behind by 18.
Yet, you know, when a day comes
that a UCLA team has to regret not
pulling within 10 points of Tulsa in
an NCAA tournament game, then
these are desperate days indeed.
What happened? Where did that
14 -0 team go? Why did the top
ranked team in America disinte -
grate? How could it lose half of its
last 14 games? What went so
haywire that UCLA could fall 29
points behind a team that lost its
last game of the season to NORTHERN
IOWA? How could college basket-
ball's 10-time national champions
have the floor mopped up with
them by a school that had never
advanced to the second round of the
tournament?

Kwanza Johnson, 6 feet 4, tip-
ping one in over Rodney Zimmer-
man, 6 feet 9. George Zidek, seven
feet, shooting from 20 feet, throw-
ing up bricks. Cameron Dollar,
having his shot blocked. Tarver,
shooting a foot long from 15 feet.
Edney, blowing a wide -open layup,
then having a teammate interfere
with it on the rim. Dempsey, grab-
bing a beautiful rebound, only, to
ruin it by attempting a wild reverse
layup. Ed O'Bannon, trying pop -
top shots from behind the hoop.
And worse:
Tulsa players, not once but
TWICE, pulling sleeper plays in the
final seconds before halftime, slip-
ping unguarded to the other end of
the court while UCLA shooters
were so busy shooting that they
forgot to drop back on defense.
Blown away by a Golden Hurri-
cane, the Bruins gave up 63 points
in 20 minutes to a team that
Oklahoma State had held to 61
points over an entire game.
Tulsa forward Gary Collier said,
"There was this look in [UCLA's]
eyes, like,'These guys can actually
play. "
Tulsa did score 128 points in its
season opener, but this was ri-
diculous. That was against Houston
Baptist. UCLA is no Houston Bap -
tist.
Then again, the Bruins do belong
to the Pac-Your-Bags-10 Confer-
ence, where basketball teams don't
hang around the postseason tour -
naments very long when there are
national "powers" like Tulsa,
Wisconsin Green Bay, Boston Col-
lege and Fresno State waiting to be
played.
Tarver said the toughness of
Tulsa didn't come as that much of a
shock, because "it was only three
years ago that we played Penn
State and we lost. " Ah, those
golden tourney memories.
Ed O'Bannon, though, was
aghast.
Asked if he found this loss em -
barrassing, O'Banaon said, "I was
very, very embarrassed. I felt we
were a mueh better team than
what we were showing. I was. . .
Yeah, I was very embarrassed, to
answer your question."
O'Bannon. did everything he
could think of to wake up his
brother Bruins, and not only his
brother Charles. Ed slapped the
basketball as hard as he could after
snapping down a rebound, shook
his fist, bumped chests, shook his
finger in teammates'faces, worked
and worked and worked. At one
point he missed a shot along the
baseline, then outran everyone
else on the court to chase down
another Tulsa sleeper and reject
his shot on the far end of the floor.
"I had no idea that O'Bannon
was that athletic, that he could
play like that," Collier said.
By day's end, though, O'Bannon
was saying, "About all there is to
do now is finish up our quarter
academically and then see what happens."
He has a lot to think about. So
does UCLA's coach and so do
UCLA's fans. it will be a long time
before any of them will forget what
a bad day this was for Bruin
basketball, this shootout they lost
at an Oklahoma corral.

Harrick Bashers Are Out in Force

Memo to Coach Jim Harrick: You
could probably do best to avoid
the Letters section this week.
STEVEN HALPERN
Beverly Hills

#
Bill Walton is right.
ROY SEERY
Los Angeles

#
Do you suppose that "student-
ahletes" Tyus Edney, Ed O'Ban -
non and Charles O'Bannon know
that Tulsa is in Oklahoma now?
HOWARD COHEN
North Hills

#
Jim Harrick's only response to
those of us who have criticized his
repeated failure to produce a team
that is competitive for an NCAA
championship has been to state:
"It's hard, real hard to win an
NCAA title." Correction, Jim. With
you coaching, it's impossible.
LEONARD B. LEVINE
Los Angeles

#
You have Ed O'Bannon, who
played his heart out, sounding like
a coach and apologizing for the
way UCLA played against Tulsa.
Meanwhile, the coach, Jim Harrick "
doesn't seem to be concerned.
After all, it's just another game.
It's March Madness, all right.
Madness to let Jim Harrick contin -
ue as coach. It's time for Chancellor
Charles Young and Peter Dalis, the
athletic dlrector, to give Harrick
the compensation he deserves, as
coach of a Division II team that he
MAY be able to coach.
RON VALENCIC
Studio City

#
Jim Harrick should feel
ashamed. A coach's singular role
should be to assist his or her
athletes in achieving their highest
potential. Through remarkable
non - coaching, Harrick has denied
his UCLA basketball players, some
of the best athletes in the country,
the chance to achieve their true
potential.
Nobody can deny that this
UCLA team has the talent to beat
any team in the nation on any
given day. But to watch these great
athletes game after game achieve
astonishing mediocrity is as tortur-
ous to Bruin fans as it must be to
the players themselves.
Harrick should either start
coaching or get out of the way.
Anything less just isn't fair to the
players.
JAMES A. PARSONS
Palos Verdes Estates

#
How long will UCLA allow Jim
Harrick to embarrass the universi-
ty? How long will the coaching
staff be allowed to cheat these
talented but uninspired athletes?
How long will sportwriters in this
city make excuses for Harrick?
The truth is that Harrick needs
no one to make excuses for him. He
is pretty good at it himself. Here
are some of my favorites: 1) Most
of my losses are on the road. 2) The
referees have no guts. 3) Bill
Walton hurt my feelings. 4) My
back - up center hurt his back. 5)
They won't pay me as much as Bob
Knight. 6) I just can't seem to get
my half-court offense to work.
Instead of making excuses, why
can't he just say, "I can't coach,"
and then utter those two magic
words that all UCLA alums are
dying to hear: "I quit."
IAIN HAMILTON
Northridge

#
I have never bad-mouthed
Coach Jim Harrick. I have been
patient with him and his team in
hopes that the real Bruins would
show up for March Madness.
However, after the loss to Tulsa,
I find myself exacerbated. There is
no doubt UCLA has the talent to
play with any team in the nation.
The question now is finding a
coach to properly motivate that
talent.
GREGG M. GOO
Rowland Heights

#
Please have your readers send
donations to the Jim Harrick Fund,
which will enable us to buy out his
contract at UCLA. For some rea-
son, Pete Dalis is reluctant to spend
the money, and it is painfully
obvious that UCLA needs a new
basketball coach.
DAVID B. RADDEN
Los Angeles

#
The awful truth is now undeni-
able. As long as Harrick is at
UCLA, the team will go nowhere.
The great recruiting class coming
up will be wasted on a program
that is doomed to mediocrity before
the first game is played.
JOHN J. GOTTES
South Gate

#
The UCLA men's basketball
team had many turnovers this
season. Now that another unfulfill -
ing season has passed, it's only
appropriate that one more turn-
over occur - that of the head
coaching position.
It's time to make room for Bill
Walton, a man knowledgeable
about basketball who is also a
leader, a motivator, a winner and
who has high expectations.
RONALD T. FOGEL
Thousand Oaks