BRUINS MAKE THEIR MOVE IN OVERTIME\UCLA 78, WASH. ST. 73.

Byline: Jon Wilner Daily News Staff Writer

It was just past noon at North Idaho College's tiny gymnasium, a full seven hours before tipoff in the Spokane Arena.

Washington State was preparing to play that night without all-conference forward Mark Hendrickson, sidelined with a fractured hand, but UCLA coach Jim Harrick fretted nevertheless.

"It's like taking Ed O'Bannon out of our lineup," he said. "But like when Tyus (Edney) was out (of the national title game), in a one-game shot, anything can happen. They'll be sky-high."

The Cougars survived without Hendrickson for 40 minutes. But the game went 45, and in the last, riveting 60 seconds, it was the Bruins who had the extra step, who made the plays and hit the free throws, and who emerged with a 78-73 overtime victory Thursday night before 11,879 fans.

The Cougars (7-2) refused to use Hendrickson's injury as an excuse, but his absence loomed over the proceedings. Bruins center Jelani McCoy had a career-high 15 boards as UCLA outrebounded the Cougars 48-35. But the player who benefited even more was Hendrickson's counterpart, Bruins power forward J.R. Henderson, who finished with a career-high 29 points.

"They didn't have an offensive player in that spot," said Henderson, who scored 28 points in Pullman last year. "Since I wasn't challenged defensively, (Hendrickson's replacement, Carlos Daniel, had seven points), I was able to stay in the game more. I had energy down the stretch."

In a few weeks or a month, the Bruins may look back on this as a watershed victory - their first on the road in conference play, not at home against Stephen F. Austin or San Francisco.

And as a sign of their rapidly improving maturity, they won their sixth straight on a night when they did not play well, with 22 turnovers and a slew of missed chip shots. "When we do those kind of things, it de-energizes us, and that's a sign of a young team" Harrick said.

The turnovers hit at a critical stage of the second half, and the Cougars built a nine-point lead with 3:59 remaining. "At that point it was pretty much dig down deep and give it one last run," UCLA's Charles O'Bannon said.

The Bruins' rally started with a 3-point shot by Toby Bailey that silenced the frenzied crowd and narrowed the Cougars' lead to 65-59. Then Kris Johnson converted an offensive rebound, and Bailey hit two free throws. Suddenly, it was a three-point game.

"That was probably the worst display of coaching in the history of Washington State," Cougars coach Kevin Eastman said. "Because we didn't as a staff keep our guys in an attack mode. That's our problem right now. When we have a lead on a team that's probably better than we are, we get tentative."

With 30 seconds left, O'Bannon missed a game-tying 3-pointer from the left wing. But in the fight for the rebound, the ball deflected out of bounds off Washington State.

The Bruins called time out.

"We wanted anybody to take the 3," Harrick said. "We went into our five-game and wanted to get somebody coming off a screen to just square up."

After a few frenetic seconds, that person was Johnson, who launched a 3 from the top of the key. He missed, but the rebound bounded straight back, to McCoy, who zipped a pass to Bailey in the right corner. He caught the ball in rhythm and drained the 3-pointer with 15.7 seconds left.

WSU called time out, then had three chances from inside 10 feet but could not convert.