Bruins’ New No. 1 Rivals : For Whatever Reason, Cal Becomes the Team UCLA Wants to Beat

BERKELEY — Here comes the grudge.

The UCLA Bruins, usually the recipient of other teams’ simmering emotions, concede that they have been aching for another shot at California.

Why is UCLA, in line to be the nation’s No. 1 team, licking its lips for a game against a team with a 12-9 record?

Because on Jan. 28, the Golden Bears beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion for the third consecutive season, then blasted the Bruins for allegedly disrupting a practice at the arena the day before, which the flabbergasted Bruins deny.

The rematch, at Harmon Gym, is scheduled for tonight in what has suddenly become UCLA’s most high-pitched rivalry.

“We feel we owe them a little something,” Bruin senior Ed O’Bannon said Wednesday. “It’s no secret. They know it.

“Personally, I have more respect for teams that win and leave. I’ve always been raised that you treat others as you’d want to be treated. They were disrespectful. It’s just something that will make the game a little special.”

Todd Bozeman, the fiery Cal coach who inspired the Bruin verbal onslaught during a heated postgame news conference, said Wednesday that the practice incident is old news.

But he doesn’t seem alarmed that UCLA, the embodiment of the West Coast basketball establishment, wants to beat Cal so badly.

If UCLA, Arizona and Stanford consider him and his program brash upstarts, he said, that’s fine.

“I think we’re developing a little rivalry with every school in the conference,” said Bozeman, who, as an assistant to Lou Campanelli, started Cal’s recent success with the recruitment of since-departed Jason Kidd.

“Our guys like to joke sometimes and say we’re like the old Raiders, a team that you love to hate,” Bozeman said. “It all depends on how you use it. You know, the Raiders were very successful at one time.”

As a result of scheduling conflicts, the two teams avoided a repeat annoyance Wednesday. Because Harmon Gym wasn’t available during UCLA’s regular afternoon practice time, the Bruins held a brief workout at a local junior college. UCLA Coach Jim Harrick said he didn’t hold Cal responsible for the complication.

But the anger at Cal--and specifically, Bozeman--over the PracticeGate charges remains.

“That was a total lie,” said UCLA freshman guard Toby Bailey, who was briefly recruited by Bozeman. “I mean, none of that happened. I don’t know how they got that. I think he just used that to pump his players up, to get them to play hard.

“People around the nation might not know that was a lie, so it just makes our program look bad. Instead of inspiring his team, I think it’s going to inspire our team to play even harder, since we know it was a lie.”

Said UCLA assistant Lorenzo Romar: “‘We’re battling for the No. 1 seed in the West and the Pac-10 championship, and we can’t be concerned if someone’s going to be upset with us off the court by the way we innocently treated someone.”

Harrick has recently praised Campanelli, not Bozeman, for Cal’s turnaround, and rebuffs suggestions that the Bears have replaced USC and Arizona as UCLA’s biggest rivalry.

But Bailey, who grew up playing against Cal freshmen Jelani Gardner and Tremaine Fowlkes, and other Bruins said Cal has become the team they most like to defeat.

“I know they gun for us,” Bailey said. “I know when they beat us, it just like made their whole year. I think we were hyped up, but we weren’t as hyped as they were. They were the underdogs. They were playing loose and came in here and played hard.

“I think this time, it’s going to be a different story. I think we play better on the road, anyway. I think we’re going to be focused, go take care of it.”

Some of the increased attention to the Cal-UCLA matchup, both sides agree, is a product of the recent recruiting battles since Bozeman’s arrival as an assistant and, in the middle of the 1992-93 season, his controversial ascension to head coach after Campanelli was dismissed.

UCLA pursued Gardner and lost him to Cal. Cal pursued J.R. Henderson and lost him to UCLA. Both went after Inglewood High senior Paul Pierce, but he recently committed to Kansas. Both schools know there will be other battles.

“A few years ago, Jason Kidd comes on the scene and, all of a sudden, Cal’s a national power, and they’re in our conference,” Romar said. “Arizona’s in another state. Cal’s right up the road.

“So that makes it a rivalry.”

Ten years removed from UCLA’s 52-game winning streak over the Bears, Bozeman’s team has beaten the Bruins three consecutive times--and four of the last five.

Bozeman suggested that it’s Cal’s ability to play the Bruins so well that is causing the bruised feelings, not any off-court rumblings.

“People might point to just that incident and say there’s tension,” he said. “But that’s only that incident. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s over with, it was over with after the game.

“That was my main thing at that point in time, but that has nothing to do with this game here. There’s no leftovers from that. Obviously, if you can’t get up to play the No. 2 team in the country, then something’s wrong.”