Cal Is Still Winless at Pauley : Bruins Win, 86-81, as Miller Scores 34

Reggie Miller scored 34 points Sunday as UCLA continued its mastery against California at Pauley Pavilion by defeating the Golden Bears, 86-81, in a Pacific 10 Conference basketball game.

The defeat was the first in four Pac-10 games this season for the Golden Bears, who have not beaten UCLA in Los Angeles since the 1959-60 season.

California, which is 9-5 overall, has never won in 29 trips to Pauley Pavilion since the building opened in 1965-66 and has won only once in the last 55 games between the two schools.

Miller scored eight points in a span of 3:20 midway through the second half to engineer a 12-4 run that restored UCLA’s 17-point halftime lead to 73-56 with 7:45 left to play.

But Kevin Johnson, who led California with 22 points, then scored the last six points of a 10-0 run that cut UCLA’s lead to seven points with 6:10 left.

The Bruins missed four of five free-throw attempts during a 45-second span, and freshman guard Bryant Walton of California hit a three-point field goal with 1:34 left to cut UCLA’s lead to three points at 81-78.

But California got no closer as Johnson missed a 12-foot bank and UCLA freshman Trevor Wilson sank a pair of free throws with 29 seconds left to clinch the victory.

The Bruins, 7-4 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-10, burned Cal early in the game with a 15-3 run, ignited by a pair of three-point field goals by Miller. The spurt gave UCLA a 29-14 lead with nine minutes left in the first half.

Miller, who scored 12 of his 18 first-half points from three-point range, teamed with Pooh Richardson during a 16-4 spree in the last 5:23 of the half as UCLA took a 49-32 lead at halftime.

Leonard Taylor, Cal’s starting center, suffered a stretched nerve in his left shoulder and upper left arm late in the first half and didn’t play in the second half.

Taylor played 13 minutes before coming out for good. He scored nine points and had three rebounds. The severity of his injury wasn’t immediately known. It was announced that he will be examined today in Berkeley.

“We were tentative the entire second half,” UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard said. “We need to do a better job shooting free throws, particularly people with ball-handling responsibilities, down the stretch.

“If we score in the 80s against a Lou Campanelli-coached team, I like our chances. Our team still will get better. I know we can play better. Every game in the conference is a must-win game, especially at home.”

The Bruins are a perfect 7-0 at Pauley Pavilion this season but 0-4 away from home.

“We weren’t taking good shots in the second half, but if we had made our free throws, it would have been no contest,” Miller said. “We were in control of this game. They (Cal) were undefeated in the conference, and we wanted to bring them down to where everyone else was.”

Miller made all 10 of his free-throw attempts but, as a team, UCLA was 27 of 40. Cal, meanwhile, was 21 of 27 from the free throw line.

“UCLA’s got a lot of talent,” said Campanelli, the Cal coach. “I think we did a pretty good job on the other guys, but I just wish we could have done a better job on Reggie (Miller).

“You hope that if your team shoots 40 free throws, you’d win the game. It was a heck of a comeback for our kids in the second half without our leading scorer (Taylor). We were able to chip away but we were in a big hole.”