UCLA Still Winless in the Pac-10 : Oregon State Slips by Bruins; Foster Quits Before Game

Just hours after Greg Foster, the Bruins’ 7-foot starting center, walked out on the team, UCLA lost its third straight Pacific 10 Conference game. Guard Dave Immel’s final shot bounced off the back of the rim into the hands of Oregon State’s Eric Knox, who hugged the ball until he heard the buzzer.

The 65-64 loss to Oregon State at Pauley Pavilion Thursday night dropped UCLA’s record to 4-8 overall, 0-3 in the Pac-10. The Bruins’ home record went to 4-5, making this the only UCLA team ever to lose five games at Pauley Pavilion in one season.

It was not a good day for the Bruins.

Foster, a sophomore, quit the team during the shoot-around at Pauley early in the afternoon, after Coach Walt Hazzard told him that he would not be starting.

That should have come as no surprise. Foster had missed practice Wednesday because he had the flu. Team policy is that players who do not practice, for whatever reason, do not play. But Hazzard would not comment on the fact that the lineup change should not have been news to Foster.

Hazzard said: “He’s a young man. Young people sometimes make rash decisions.”

Nor would Hazzard say whether he would take Foster back if he wanted to come back. “We’ll think about that right now,” Hazzard said.

The theory is that Foster was embarrassed not to be starting in a game against Gary Payton, Oregon State’s star point guard, who was Foster’s teammate at Skyline High School in Oakland. Their high school coach, Fred Noel, was at Pauley for the game.

As Payton left the locker room Thursday night, he said he was on his way to Foster’s dormitory room. “I haven’t talked to him yet today, but our coach told me that he wants to see me, so that’s where I’m going,” Payton said. “I’m going to tell him that I don’t think he should quit. It’s going to hurt him more than it will hurt UCLA.”

None of the Bruin players wanted to comment on the effect of Foster’s departure. He wasn’t sorely missed in the game. For one thing, Oregon State did not use any player taller than Bill Sherwood, who is 6-6. And UCLA has been playing very well with 6-7 Kelvin Butler at center.

Foster’s playing time has been dropping off recently. He played just 11 minutes against North Carolina last Saturday.

But Hazzard said Tuesday that he did not intend to take Foster out of the starting lineup. Hazzard said Wednesday night that Butler would start because Foster had the flu.

Foster was at the team’s hotel Wednesday night, staying in a room by himself so that he would not give the flu to his teammates. But he reportedly reacted in anger at the team’s shoot-around Thursday afternoon when told that he would not be starting.

That reaction is in keeping with the reputation he developed on the court last season as a freshman. He was quick to lose his temper when elbows started flying, and he was involved in an altercation in a game against Oregon.

Curiously, Thursday night’s program featured a story on Foster, in which he was quoted as saying: “I suppose the biggest difference between now and a year ago is my attitude change, although I hate to say that because I’ve never felt like I had an attitude problem.

“But I’m an aggressive and emotional player, and I know a lot of people last year labeled me with an attitude problem . . . I keep trying to stay within myself and not retaliate.”

Last season, it was forward Craig Jackson who quit the team, but he missed only two games before coming back. He now is in the starting lineup.

But Thursday night’s game was more a game of guards than of big men, with Payton playing a major role as Oregon State’s ballhandler.

But it was a mistake by Payton that almost cost the Beavers the game.

Reserve forward Charles Rochelin had put the Bruins within a point on a dunk of Pooh Richardson’s inbounds pass with 41 seconds to play. There were 37 seconds left when Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller called a timeout, so all the Beavers had to do was protect the ball and prepare to shoot free throws. No need to worry about the 45-second clock.

The Beavers, experts at using the clock, had worked it down to 20 seconds when Payton made a jump pass to Shawn Freeman that was tipped by Bruin freshman guard Gerald Madkins and grabbed by Richardson.

“That was a mistake on my part, to leave my feet,” Payton said. “Now I know that in that situation, I should just have just protected it. But I saw Shawn Freeman on the baseline and I thought if I could get up, I could make the dump pass over the guy. But Madkins tipped it.”

When the Bruins called time out to set up their last shot, there were 14 seconds left.

Hazzard said the final play was designed “to look in to Kelvin Butler, to set Pooh up for penetration or to spot Charles up. They denied Charles and doubled Pooh, and the ball went to Dave. Dave shot it with a couple of people on him.”

Payton said he tapped Immel’s arm on the shot and hoped there wasn’t a whistle.

Immel didn’t want to comment on whether he had been fouled. But he did say, “It felt like a good shot. It was in the rim, but it just came straight back. I felt like it should go. It was only a 14-footer. It could have been the game-winner.”

Miller said, “We are very happy that the last shot didn’t go in for UCLA. Maybe it’s turnaround from last year, when the last shot (by Reggie Miller) went in for them and won the game (in overtime.)”

It was the conference opener for Oregon State (7-3 overall).

Hazzard said, “It was a tough loss, but it was a good effort. . . . Not to take anything away from Oregon State--they played a good game. It was a tough way to lose. We had a shot at it, but that’s been the case all year. We just came up short.”