Stanford Provides a Big Test

Fourth-ranked Stanford and No. 10 UCLA play a big game tonight at Pauley Pavilion.

Big implications, one team a prime contender to return to the Final Four and the other looking to test itself against the elite of the Pacific 10 Conference.

Big-time players.

Stanford has size and strength inside with a front line that goes 7 feet 2, 6-9 and 6-7, and experience and execution at every spot.

UCLA has size, but little experience. The Bruins also have potential.

The potential for an admirable showing. Potential for a disaster.

“Me, Dan [Gadzuric], Jerome [Moiso], we take it as a huge challenge,” Travis Reed said of the UCLA big men. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for all year. Stanford has probably the best front line in the nation. We’re anxious to see how we play.”

Said Moiso: “We’ve been looking forward to this for the last two weeks now, preparing for this big game. It’s going to show us how good we can be if we win--and show us what we need to work on if we come up a little bit short.”

They have had other measuring-stick games, but under much different circumstances.

The Bruins were blown out by Maryland and lost by four to Kentucky, both in the Puerto Rico Shootout, but both also before the return of Baron Davis.

Tonight, they get another test, the truest yet.

“No question,” Coach Steve Lavin said. “Each game is [a test] with this team, for different reasons. Stanford, because they’re the runaway freight train of this conference.

“This team does tend to step up to challenges. I do like that quality in them. You saw it in the way they responded to Kentucky [with a good showing the night after losing badly to Maryland], and that was even before we had Baron. You saw it in the way they responded to Oregon.”

If Lavin is expecting a memorable game, maybe it’s because all four of the Bruins’ games against Stanford during his coaching tenure have been noteworthy:

* Jan. 9, 1997--It became known as the Maples Massacre. Stanford 109, UCLA 61.

It’s the worst loss in Bruin history, and the timing only made for a greater impact. Jim Harrick’s firing was still fresh, Lavin was still working as an interim coach and the Cardinal had recently received commitments from a pair of Los Angeles-area standouts, twin brothers Jason and Jarron Collins.

* Feb. 8, 1997--The Bruins got revenge for the events of a month earlier with an 87-68 victory, and Lavin got the job.

While it would be simplifying the situation to say this victory at Pauley Pavilion was the reason why, especially since UCLA had lost to California 48 hours earlier, Lavin himself doesn’t dispute the importance of the win to his future. Days later, he had the interim tag removed.

“To come back against the very same team a month or five weeks later,” he said, “it was such a clear, dramatic statement of how much we had improved.”

* Jan. 17, 1998--On this trip to Palo Alto, a little more than a year after the record defeat, the Bruins merely trailed by 18 points at halftime, en route to a 93-80 loss.

UCLA went on a 24-7 run immediately after intermission to get within a point, and was still within two with 7:21 left but could never overtake the Cardinal.

Three Bruins--Kris Johnson, Jelani McCoy and Toby Bailey--had double-doubles.

But Stanford offset that by making 14 of 26 three-point shots.

* Feb. 12, 1998--The Cardinal had lost three of four, and the victory was by two points over a Cal team that would finish 12-15. So the 84-81 victory before 13,079--the third-largest crowd in Pauley Pavilion history--stood as one of the most significant in a season that would end at the Final Four.

It marked only the second time in a series that began in 1925 that Stanford swept the Bruins.

To do it, the Cardinal rallied from an early 10-point deficit.

No. 4 STANFORD

(14-2, 4-0)

at

No. 10 UCLA

(12-3, 4-1)

7:30 p.m.

TV: FX