Immel Seeks More Playing Time; That’s the Rub : His 22-Point Performance Against Pepperdine Gives Hazzard a Nice Problem

It is like playing chicken. You are on defense and some guy is not about to slow his full-speed drive right to your face or quit dribbling until the basketball reaches your adenoids.

So what do you do? Give it your best matador spin, say Ole! and give up the basket? Or do you stand there and get trampled, a tactic that may draw blood but may also draw a charging call?

For Dave Immel, a student of psychology, the choice is easy.

“I will not back down,” said Immel, a UCLA guard who is always looking for an edge, real or imagined.

“I can get a psychological edge over the offensive player by drawing a charge,” he said. “It makes them not want to drive against me the next time.”

On the court, Immel, a 6-4, 198-pound junior from Hillsboro, Ore., apparently has the perfect temperament to play guard. His personality is not exactly cordial. In fact, it is a little like having sandpaper rubbed against the side of your head.

“He is not the easiest kid to get along with,” UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard said. “He’s got an abrasive way, but that’s just his personality. He’s a hard-nosed kid.

“I told him I don’t care how he feels, how moody he is, just as long as he plays,” Hazzard said.

Immel has never played better than he did in UCLA’s last game, a 95-82 victory over Pepperdine, when he scored a career-high 22 points. It’s just that Immel would like to play more, and finding enough playing time for all of his guards is a difficult job for Hazzard.

Coming off a redshirt year, Immel is in a backcourt rotation with Rod Palmer behind starters Pooh Richardson and Montel Hatcher.

“I don’t know what you can do when you have four guards that are all pretty close talent-wise,” Immel said. “But I know that what happened (against Pepperdine) is something I’m capable of doing again, if I get the playing time.”

Hazzard considers it important to increase the playing time of Hatcher, who averages 18 minutes a game as a starter, and may eventually pair Hatcher with Immel, who averages 19 minutes a game off the bench.

“It’s great to be able to look to the bench and find someone with spark and punch like Immel,” Hazzard said.

Last season, there was no punch, no spark and no Immel. He took a year off from basketball not only to allow some nagging injuries to heal but also to improve his schoolwork.

Immel said he has noticed a difference in himself. “My attitude has changed,” he said. “No longer am I an athlete going to school, but I’m a student who happens to be fortunate enough to play basketball.”

His physical status led to his redshirt year. Both knees were bad. His left one, on which he’d had surgery before his freshman year to remove bone chips, was still bothering him. So was his right knee, on which he had recently had arthroscopic surgery.

But now, Immel and his renovated knees are back, which means it’s up to Hazzard to find a place for Immel to play. What do you do with punch and spark? You use them.

“If Dave Immel is around a loose ball, 90% of the time he’ll come up with it,” Hazzard said. “That’s the kind of player he is.”

After a year in the weight room, Immel is stronger, and a full year of concentrating on his psychology studies has made him a better student. But there is one thing about Immel that he says has not changed: He is still looking for that edge.

“I have to play within myself and out-think the other guy,” he said. “I know physically I’m not as gifted. I can’t jump as high and I’m not as quick. I know I just have to play hard and see if problems don’t take care of themselves.”

Bruin Notes Guard Montel Hatcher needed three stitches because of a cut he suffered above his left eye in the Pepperdine game. . . . Reggie Miller, who played despite a sprained ankle, did not practice Tuesday. . . . The Bruins will play their first road games of the season this weekend, against St. John’s Saturday in New York’s Madison Square Garden, then against Temple Monday night in Philadelphia.