Bruins End Irish Streak --and an Era? : UCLA: Notre Dame falls, 83-58, in final scheduled game of series.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. —  For a fitful five minutes Wednesday night, in an arena that has been the scene of some of UCLA’s most memorable misery, a Bruin team meant to fly at the rim and bustle through opponents played on tentative tiptoes.

The results? Nothing to speak of. Literally, nothing.

The Bruins’ first 10 possessions netted four turnovers, six missed shots, and a 6-0 lead for the Fighting Irish.

Were the Bruins weighed down thinking about the end to their 30-year annual rivalry with Notre Dame--UCLA has decided to terminate at least for a year, beginning next season?

Maybe Coach Jim Harrick’s personal 0-3 record at South Bend, and UCLA’s five-game, 12-season losing streak here, was distracting?

“I think I had my team a little uptight,” Harrick said after the Bruins calmed down and stormed past Notre Dame, 83-58, led by guard Toby Bailey’s team-high 19 points and Kris Johnson’s 10 points and eight rebounds, before 9,339. “I kept reminding them of [his 0-3 record].

“I told them I’d brought some pretty good players here--Trevor Wilson, Murray, MacLean, Mitchell Butler, O’Bannon, Edney--and not won one. Maybe I told them too many times.”

Either way, a series that has been renewed every season since Dec. 22, 1966 (from 1971-72 through 1982-83, the teams played each other twice a season), and fashioned some of the biggest Irish victories in school history, is over for an undefined time, and the ending came in a weird, subdued, and, eventually, overwhelming fashion.

With the Notre Dame students on winter break, and with UCLA (5-3) asserting total dominance once Harrick sent Cameron Dollar, despite his injured right pinky, into the game with 15:35 left in the first half, the contest was all but decided when the Bruins took a 45-30 lead quickly in the second half.

UCLA apparently could not fit Notre Dame, which moved into the Big East this season, into next season’s schedule, but has told Notre Dame it is looking for ways to renew the series in following years.

“Nothing is forever,” Harrick said. “Times change, things change. It does not mean we will not ever schedule them again.”

Notre Dame (2-4), you might remember, as UCLA surely does, ended UCLA’s record-setting 88-game winning streak on Jan. 19, 1974, at Joyce Center, with a 71-70 victory in Bill Walton’s senior year.

Notre Dame also broke the Bruins’ 115-game nonconference winning streak at Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 11, 1976.

And though the current Bruins said they really couldn’t understand the deeper emotions of this series--Johnson, for one, pointed out that the Notre Dame-USC football rivalry is far more fierce--they knew winning this game meant something.

“It’s the end of a great tradition of basketball,” said Charles O’Bannon, who had his fourth consecutive solid game, with 13 points and eight rebounds. “So, it’s great to end it on top. Especially with Coach Harrick finally getting one.”

After its sputtering 2-3 start, UCLA has won three in a row as it caroms toward January and the start of Pacific 10 Conference play, and, if you throw out those first nervous minutes, is finding rhythm and confidence.

The signs?

--Backup center omm’A Givens, after a career-high 18-point outing against Stephen F. Austin on Monday night, made five of his six shots Wednesday, and ended up with 12 points.

--Bailey had his second consecutive blistering shooting night, making five of seven from three-point distance and seven of 10 overall.

--J.R. Henderson quietly put up 13 points and eight rebounds, dominating the slow Notre Dame front line at will.

--And Dollar looked as if he was rounding into form after weeks of worry, calming the team down for good when he entered the game.

“I really didn’t think I’d get in that early,” said Dollar, who was held out of Monday’s game to rest his damaged finger. “I was down there on the bench, but things like this always happen. You’ve got to be ready for them. And thank God I’m always ready.”

The Irish, led by forward Pat Garrity’s 23 points and freshman point guard Doug Gottlieb’s 10, were outrebounded, 43-25, in the game and shot only 37.9%.

“This is definitely big because we’re finally playing the kind of basketball we know we can play,” Johnson said. “We’re blowing out the people we should blow out.”