Unfocused Bruins See It New Way : College basketball: UCLA rebounds from opening loss to Santa Clara to defeat Wisconsin, 68-57.

Not much more than 12 hours after their long and lackadaisical night’s journey into the Maui Invitational losers’ bracket, the UCLA Bruins suppressed their more immature tendencies and won a game Tuesday.

Forty minutes of helter-skelter? Not this time around.

Still forcing some shots and still suffering some defensive lapses, UCLA still was good enough, and patient enough, to defeat Wisconsin, 68-57, before 2,400 at the Lahaina Civic Center.

Compared to last year’s smooth, 19-consecutive-victories sprint to the national title, it was lackluster. But in the wake of Monday night’s season-opening display of just how much they miss Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and George Zidek in a 78-69 defeat by Santa Clara, it was the return to Bruin sanity.

“I think they maybe had an idea about the way they were going to play this year, and they tried that and it didn’t work,” Coach Jim Harrick said after Tuesday’s victory. “So we’re going to play it my way from now on.

Junior point guard Cameron Dollar, who’d had a zero-point, seven-turnover outing against the Broncos, stayed calm Tuesday and kept UCLA’s more impetuous players--Toby Bailey, Kris Johnson and Jelani McCoy--under some control, and contributed nine assists and no turnovers.

The Bruins had 22 turnovers against Santa Clara. Against Wisconsin, they had only 12 and shot 56.9% from the field.

“I wasn’t tenacious enough to just take over and control the team,” Dollar said of the Santa Clara loss. “When I got impatient, everybody got impatient. When I rushed, everybody rushed. When I wasn’t focused, nobody was focused on running the offense.

“So it became five guys running around trying to do it on their own. I think we tried too much flash, and not enough basics. Today, we just got back to keeping everything simple, just running the offense.”

UCLA will play Vanderbilt, which bombed Chaminade on Tuesday with 12 three-point baskets, in today’s consolation bracket title game.

Although the Bruins led only by six, 37-31, at the half over the rebuilding Badgers and did not pull away until the final minutes, Harrick was obviously hoping that the victory had hit home with his young players.

“We didn’t have any focus out there,” Harrick said of Monday’s series of chaotic dashes to the basket and clunky one-on-one offensive moves. “We thought it’d just come so easy. What happened is they’re young, they read their press clippings. I knew it would happen at some time this year, I just didn’t know when.”

Against Wisconsin, J.R. Henderson led with 19 points and nine rebounds, and Charles O’Bannon had 17 points. The starting forwards made 16 of their 25 shots and provided almost all of UCLA’s half-court offense.

“I kind of had mixed feelings about it,” Henderson said of the opening-night loss. “I was glad we had a learning experience. I didn’t want to admit it, but that’s what we needed.”

Wisconsin stayed in the game with a strong offensive performance by freshman forward Sam Okey, who led all scorers with 21 points, and some hard slashes to the basket by sophomore forward Mosezell Peterson, who had nine points and four assists.

“We felt that if we got into a wrestling match with them, we’d have a chance,” said first-year Wisconsin Coach Dick Bennett. “We wrestled with them for a long time, but you still have to make plays at the key moments.”

Although UCLA got a crucial blocked shot from freshman center McCoy, a big three-point shot by Dollar and a couple of late baskets by Henderson, Harrick conceded that there are still problems. McCoy, for instance, had three goaltending violations to go with his three blocked shots, giving him a two-game total of seven goaltends.

On Monday, the bench scored only 12 points. Tuesday, the bench’s scoring production was nil. And UCLA shot 42.9% and 50% from the free-throw line in the two games.

“I don’t think our defense is as good as I’d like for it to be,” Harrick said. “We don’t shoot foul shots well at all. And the bench hasn’t contributed at all, and last year it did. So we’re still searching for those areas.”