Finely Tuned Soviet Team Wins : Basketball: San Diego Select team is no match for Soviet Junior Nationals, losing 138-89. Meek leads local team with 30 points and 10 rebounds.

SAN DIEGO —  Though young and inexperienced in the ways of international basketball, the San Diego Police Athletic League Select demonstrated it does know a thing or two about all-star games.

Defense?

Leave it in the locker room. If you can’t beat ‘em running and gunning, you won’t.

The visiting team, however, didn’t take quite the same approach.

The Soviet Union Junior National Team played both ends of the court, made only a handful of mistakes and showed why it is one of the best junior squads in the world, rolling to a 138-89 victory in front of approximately 1,500 Friday at the San Diego Sports Arena.

“We gave up too many uncontested layups, too many offensive rebounds and far too many opportunities,” Select Coach Michael Brunker said. “It all added up to a 50-point rout.”

Forty-nine, actually, but most stopped keeping track after the Soviets took a 63-44 lead at the half. Unofficially, it was probably decided three minutes earlier when the 11th of 12 Soviets entered the scoring ranks with a 5-foot turnaround jumper. The score then was 56-35.

In defense of its defense, Select, a cast of 11 San Diego County high school juniors and seniors, had only about four weeks to prepare for the game, and the Soviets, all of them 19, 20 or 21 years old, have been playing together for years.

Said Brunker, “The team you saw tonight probably had to rank among the top five teams that have ever played in the San Diego Sports Arena.”

OK. A bit of an exaggeration, but the Soviets are an impressive bunch.

Seven of them scored in double figures, led by Igor Grachev with 22 points and Alexander Okunski with 21. Three had eight or more rebounds led by Okunski with 16, including 11 on the offensive end.

The Soviets also made 55 of 109 shots (50.5%), half of 14 three-pointers and 25 of 33 free throws (75.8%).

“They surprised us,” Fallbrook’s Chris Miller said. “I heard they were slugs, and they couldn’t move. They weren’t blinding quick, but they sure got up and down the floor in a hurry.”

It didn’t take the Soviets long to establish their dominance. They never trailed and before the late-starting game was 10 minutes old, they had a 15-point lead and never looked back.

Things got so bad that with 56 seconds left in the game, Select was whistled for having six players on the court. Perhaps they thought it was some sort of international courtesy rule for teams being blown out by more than 40.

San Pasqual’s Erik Meek had 30 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Select in both categories, but his help was virtually limited to Miller (18 points) and El Camino’s Shaun Scurry (16 points, nine rebounds).

Said Meek, who was a member of a similar team that lost to the Soviets by nine two years ago, “What I remember from them from two years ago was that they don’t make too many turnovers. They make every possession count.”

Politely, Soviet Coach Stanislas Eremin said he liked the San Diego team. “I thought they did a good job,” Eremin said. “They have some very good players, but it is very difficult to play against us with so many tall players.”

Miller said intimidation was a definite factor. “Nobody was getting back on defense. I don’t think we hustled at all. They set the stage early in the game. They were out there pushing, pressing things. We got intimidated by that. We didn’t step up to their level.”