Bruins Winning in Waves : UCLA: MacLean scores 23 points in 18 minutes as team improves record to 8-0 with 108-85 romp over Pepperdine.

Coach Jim Harrick said this week that he wanted his fifth-ranked UCLA basketball team to be more “coldblooded,” taking out its victims without compassion and then moving on to the next.

“(Bill) Walton’s teams were like that, about as coldblooded as any I’ve ever seen,” Harrick said. “They just killed people--didn’t care who it was. There was never any major drop-off in their level of play.”

Harrick got what he wanted Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion, where the Bruins buried Pepperdine, 108-85, before 7,881.

Junior forward Don MacLean scored 23 points, moving past Sidney Wicks into 10th place on UCLA’s all-time scoring list, as the Bruins improved to 8-0 going into Saturday night’s game against Iowa (8-1) at Iowa City.

Despite a hip that was so sore that he didn’t practice this week, MacLean made 10 of 14 shots. This was after Harrick feared that his leading scorer might have a hip pointer suffered during a tumble last Saturday against DePaul.

He played a career-low 18 minutes as the Bruins cruised.

Reserve forward Keith Owens scored a career-high 17 points and had eight rebounds and three blocked shots in 20 minutes, Darrick Martin had 15 points and nine assists in 23 minutes, Tracy Murray had 15 points in 21 minutes and reserve guard Shon Tarver had 14 points in 22 minutes.

The Bruins took control during a 19-minute blitz, outscoring the outmanned Waves, 62-29, from about the six-minute mark in the first half to about the five-minute mark in the second to open a 34-point lead.

They made 62.5% of their shots in building a 57-35 halftime lead, then made 53.1% in the second half to finish at 57.8%, a little above their average of 57.2%, which ranks second in the nation.

MacLean said Harrick’s words had an effect on the Bruins.

“This was a game that, obviously, we should win,” he said, “but there are always upsets in college basketball and if we come out here and we’re joking around and having a good time because we know we’re better, we can get upset.

“But if we’re coldblooded, we’re going out there with a purpose and blowing them out early. We let some teams hang with us and a couple of teams even beat us last year when we should have won. I don’t think we’re going to let that happen this year.”

It didn’t against Pepperdine, which has lost three of its past four games to fall to 5-4 under Coach Tom Asbury, Harrick’s former assistant.

Forward Geoff Lear led the Waves with 24 points. Freshman Dana Jones, last season’s City 3-A player of the year at North Hollywood High, scored 19 points and guard Doug Christie scored 17.

Harrick coached for nine seasons at Pepperdine, where his teams won or shared five conference championships, reached the NCAA tournament four times and the National Invitation Tournament twice. This was his first time coaching against the Waves, who hadn’t played UCLA since the 1986-87 season.

Harrick said this week that he would like to play the Waves every season, but that’s probably not going to happen.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the other teams in the area,” said Jim Milhorn, an associate athletic director who makes the Bruins’ schedule.

Pepperdine kept it close for about six minutes, or until Harrick brought his reserve power off the bench.

With Owens, Tarver and Zan Mason on the floor in place of MacLean, Gerald Madkins and Mitchell Butler, and with Rodney Zimmerman later replacing Murray, the Bruins outscored the Waves, 10-0, to open a 26-15 lead.

They continued to pull away, extending their lead to 78-44 about five minutes into the second half.

“From the time it was 16-15, I thought we picked up our intensity defensively and went on a spell,” Harrick said. “We played awfully well until about six minutes into the second half, and then we kind of quit.”

Of course, by then, the outcome had long been settled.

“We’re a young team,” said Asbury, whose starting lineup included a pair of freshmen, “but we’re getting older and older as we go through the schedule. UCLA has a fine, fine basketball team.”

Bruin Notes

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick believes that officials erred in UCLA’s favor Saturday at Rosemont, Ill., when they reset the 45-second clock after Tracy Murray’s shot was deflected by DePaul’s Stephen Howard with about 10 seconds left. The ball kicked out to Darrick Martin, who was fouled as he attempted to shoot with 4.6 seconds left. That was more than 47 seconds after the Bruins took possession of the ball. Under a new NCAA rule, the shot clock is not reset if a blocked shot is deflected out of bounds by a defensive player. However, if a shot is blocked and remains inbounds, the clock is reset when a team gains control. Martin made two free throws to give UCLA a 92-90 victory.

Former Bruin All-American Bill Walton, who tutored Louisiana State’s 7-1 Shaquille O’Neal for several days last month at LSU, started working Wednesday with UCLA’s Mike Lanier and Rodney Zimmerman. “I imagine we’ll do it on a regular basis through the course of the season,” said Walton, who is working as a commentator for Prime Ticket. “I love it. Basketball is the favorite aspect of my life. I love working with these guys.” . . . Zimmerman had five points, three rebounds, six blocked shots and two steals in 21 minutes.

For the record: DePaul’s David Booth missed his last three shots against UCLA. He scored a career-high 40 points, but didn’t score in the last six minutes.