BRUINS TAKE THEIR BEST SHOT THEY FIND HOT TOUCH INSIDE; TOP GAMECOCKS UCLA 89, S. CAROLINA 77.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

LAHAINA, Hawaii - When UCLA arrived back at its hotel Tuesday night after getting thrashed by Ball State, the Bruins headed straight to a banquet room. There, they spent the next 2 1/2 hours intently staring at videotape of their loss.

As it turned out, they didn't need to look at the tape. They simply needed to look in the mirror.

The Bruins, if not looking Final Four-ready, at least looked improved Wednesday. They started quickly, shot exceptionally well and received a career-best effort from T.J. Cummings to wrap up the Maui Classic with a 89-77 win over South Carolina and a third-place finish in the tournament.

Cummings, who made 11 of 12 shots, scored a career-high 25 points and had a career-high nine rebounds, all of them on the defensive end.

The rest of the Bruins didn't shoot much worse. They hit 72.9 percent of their shots from the field, missing the school record of 73.1 percent - set in 1996 against the other USC - by a single field goal.

All of which left South Carolina coach Dave Odom shaking his head.

``I don't know if I've ever had a team do that,'' Odom said. ``You've got to give them a lot of credit, but when I go back and look at the tape, I'll probably see a lot of open jump shots. We're not a good team right now.''

The Bruins made a concerted effort to get the ball inside, a plan they didn't abandon when center Dan Gadzuric tweaked his sprained ankle and played just four minutes or when power forward Matt Barnes spent the final 18 minutes of the first half on the bench after picking up two fouls six seconds apart.

``We watched on the tape how open the big men were,'' said Cummings, a 6-foot-10 sophomore. ``The guards were putting the ball on the floor instead of getting it in to us. It wasn't that they weren't trying. They just didn't see us.''

Instead of becoming a perimeter-oriented team and relying on jump shots, the Bruins' first option was to go inside. After taking 34 3-point shots in the first two games, the Bruins attempted just 10. And six of them were by Jason Kapono (2-2) and Billy Knight (3-4) - the two players the Bruins want shooting them.

``Yesterday, we were forcing up a lot of shots,'' Knight said. ``Coach gathered us and said we have to go inside and that's what we did. My first three passes were inside and after that I got outside shots. We went inside out instead of outside in.''

Kapono, who was named to the all-tournament team, scored 19 points and Knight was quietly superb. He scored 11 of his 12 points in the first half, had a career-high five assists, three rebounds, one steal and no turnovers. The last statistic was quite an accomplishment considering the Bruins coughed up the ball 21 times.

With Kapono on the bench with two fouls at the end of the half, Knight took the ball into the lane and flicked a pass to Cummings, whose 15-foot jumper at the buzzer put UCLA ahead 48-30.

``That's the one thing about me, every shot I put up, I think is going in,'' said Cummings, who took 400 jump shots a day over the summer working with a private shooting coach.

In the second half, South Carolina crawled within 56-43 on Jamel Bradley's 3-pointer with 13:46 left. But the Bruins answered the charge with one of their own and took a 70-47 lead, their largest, on Cummings' jumper with 9:30 left. South Carolina never got closer than the final score.

The Bruins return home today with two comfortable victories but have some problems to sort out - namely, taking care of the ball. They committed 58 turnovers in the three games, 16 more than their opponents.

UCLA's three freshmen, Cedric Bozeman, Andre Patterson and Dijon Thompson, again had uneven games. Thompson contributed 10 points, four assists and three steals in 22 minutes, but the point guard Bozeman and Patterson each committed five turnovers.

And the Bruins received virtually nothing in Maui from two of their seniors, Gadzuric and captain Rico Hines. Gadzuric, who played just 41 minutes because of ankle and foul trouble, has three-game totals of 11 points, five rebounds and six turnovers. Hines has played 55 minutes without scoring.

They couldn't ask for more from Cummings.

He's the Bruins' second-leading scorer (16.3 per game) and has made 20 of 27 shots. He's also their second-leading rebounder (5.3) behind Barnes. If Cummings keeps this up, he'll also leave his coach with a decision to make when Gadzuric's ankle heels - how to get Cummings on the floor.

``T.J. told me this summer he's been working on his point-guard skills,'' Lavin said. ``I can play him at the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.''

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T.J. Cummings, shooting over South Carolina's Tony Kitchens, scored a career-high 25 points.

Michael Conroy/Associated Press