Wizard Watches Harrick Step From Shadows

He hunched in a cushioned armchair in the CBS aerie as the Kingdome filled Monday night, a spectacle in spite of himself. The expression, the body language - fingertips pressed together - were downright Popeish, befitting the high priest of UCLA basketball.

Spooky, it was. The most honored guest was a ghost.

Twenty years and three days after he walked away from the college game, John Wooden was back at its championship showcase - flying in on his own as if guided by premonition.

And champions again, coincidentally or not, are the UCLA Bruins.

We indulge in these games to be amazed and amused and uplifted, to have our assumptions shattered and our convictions reaffirmed. The Bruins did all of that - six characters in search of an author worthy of the tale and a coach who embraced a legend rather than be consumed by it.

The banner from the Bruins’ 89-78 knockout of Arkansas will go up in Pauley Pavilion with an attitude.

“I hope I’m in town when they put it up there,” said Ed O’Bannon, who should do the honors. “I want to see the banner being placed in its spot. I’ll be there - I don’t care what’s going on in my life.”

Especially if it involves, oh, the Timberwolves, say.

There is a pot of gold awaiting Ed O’Bannon and - who can say? - perhaps more championships to come in the National Basketball Anticlimax. He will never be a part of any sporting thing as remarkable as this.

The smart guys in Vegas weren’t fooled, though the three points they gave the Bruins would have disappeared before you could say over-under if they’d known Tyus Edney’s right wrist was so useless that he offered Arkansas’ Corey Beck his left hand to shake during introductions. Two minutes and 37 seconds into the game, Edney was summoned to the bench by coach Jim Harrick.

“I said that’s enough of that,” Harrick said. “If we go down, we’ll go down the best way we can.”

Down? The Bruins soared.

Cameron Dollar, the understudy point guard, was positively Edneyesque in breaking the Arkansas press. Toby Bailey levitated over startled Razorbacks defenders for 26 points. Clunky George Zidek took the nasty out of Corliss Williamson, who made just 3 of 16 shots and had no discernible impact on a game he dominated a year ago.

But above all, there was O’Bannon - 30 points, 17 rebounds, not merely jousting with the beefier Hogs inside but owning them. There were some spectacular athletic feats in this occasionally ragged jewel, but few were as impressive as back-toback plays early in the second half - an offensive board he powered through the hack of Dwight Stewart for a three-point play and a defensive rebound he flung down to Bailey for a reverse jam. That put UCLA up 55-45 and confirmed that this was revelation, not illusion.

The Hogs went 10 deep; Harrick had one sub. And yet it was Arkansas that wore down, their mad-dog mien losing a little more froth with each UCLA sally.

“We’re the best team in the country,” O’Bannon pointed out unnecessarily. “There’s no denying it. We proved it - with six players.”

This was so much more of a statement game than any of the 10 championships UCLA won under Wooden, if only because of what’s ensued in the years since his retirement.

Perhaps it was for that reason that he declined to speak with Harrick’s team before it took the floor, and why he was escorted from his seat with 1:25 remaining.

“I would rather stay in the background and not take anything way from the team,” he said. “They have had a tremendous season and I didn’t want to take any attention away from them.”

But, of course, that’s impossible at UCLA. Naturally, someone asked the inevitable nonsense.

“We have a long way to go before we start talking dynasty,” cautioned Dollar. “All of us young guys on this team just filled in roles. When Ed and Tyus and George leave, those roles will be gone.”

Having grown up in Los Angeles, O’Bannon and Edney leave with a particular sense of accomplishment - and surprisingly few hard feelings. The expectations, they accept, come with the territory.

“I didn’t have a lot of resentment,” Edney insisted. “In four years, I’ve gotten used to it. People just demand a lot out of this program - but, really, you want the fans to demand a lot out of you. Would you want it any other way?”

Perhaps not. Harrick, as always, was conciliatory to the end, even calling UCLA’s victory “something the city can get excited about” in the wake of disasters natural (earthquakes, mudslides) and unnatural (O.J., Heidi Fleiss).

He might even consider the irony of the crusade that his march to an NCAA title became for his fellow college coaches. Almost to a man they hoped for retribution for the Harrick-bashing of the last several years, perhaps not realizing that all a championship would do is reinforce the notion that victory cures all.

But so what? The man coached, the kids played.

The ghost watched and positively glowed. Someone else, at last, can share the legacy.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review