Jeff Agase Agase’s sister, a high school
senior, came to the game and just might be sold on UCLA. Eemail him
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articles by Jeff Agase
Billy Knight for three. It will forever be etched in the record
of a rivalry that was due for a classic.
An improbable ending to what began to look like a probable loss.
A blown lead, a near-Trojan season sweep, an instant classic.
Last night, in what very well could have been the Pac-10 death
knell for UCLA, a baffled, rowdy, desperate Pauley Pavilion crowd
watched and wondered as a comfy 11-point lead became a one-point
deficit.
They wondered if the Trojans would finally sweep the Bruins.
They wondered what freshman Cedric Bozeman was doing taking what
looked like the final shot.
And finally, they wondered how Billy Knight was the only one who
distanced himself from a scrum of nine under the basket.
“The first thing I thought was that they’d look at
the clock,” Knight said, knowing his slow release stalled the
collective breath of 12,810.
“You play your entire career to beat USC at the
buzzer.”
Or, perhaps rephrased, you play your entire career to hit the
shot that ended the play that UCLA and USC fans will replay again
and again in their minds.
The ever-schizophrenic Bruins had yet again gone to sleep and
surrendered a lead. Only this time, it wasn’t a road game in
Arizona on the line ““ it was home against USC, and the
ignominy of the first Trojan sweep since 1991-92.
The play, Bruin players would later say, was designed for Jason
Kapono, who broke out of a reputation for going MIA in big games by
scoring 26 points. Predictably, though, that option was smothered,
so Bozeman began a drive to the basket that the freshman
wouldn’t have dreamed of two weeks ago.
His shot too hard, Herculean Dan Gadzuric, who was a factor for
a full 35 minutes, tried a put back.
No good. Rebound Gadzuric, five seconds on the clock.
“I saw a bunch of ‘SC players all around me, so I
pivoted and kicked it out rather than try to punch through all the
‘SC guys myself,” Gadzuric said.
Kicked it out, but to who?
Who else, but the guy whose home address should read,
“Three Point Line, Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA,
90024.”
Billy Knight for three.
For those in the crowd or those watching at home dizzied by the
entire exchange, you were not alone.
“It felt like it took the ball a half hour to come
out,” Knight said. “I got the ball real slowly and
didn’t hear the crowd.
“It went swish, and I heard the crowd erupt.”
He will hear the crowd, again and again. And possibly, though
not definitely, the Bruins will hear it, use it, straighten things
out with it.
A rivalry that many see becoming more two-sided deserved this.
Some, though, including Jason Kapono, weren’t sure the Bruins
deserved it.
“We probably shouldn’t have won the game,” he
said. “But we had God and Billy Knight on our side
tonight.”
Of course, the details tend to get obscured when the finish
divinely swings your way. Instead of images of UCLA players
dribbling off their feet or of USC clawing back against a
lackadaisical Bruin defense, fans of both teams will find
Knight’s unusually flat, hardly contested three-pointer
emblazoned on their basketball consciousness.
It could have never happened for any number of reasons. Had
Bozeman been tripped up, Gadzuric been outrebounded, or USC been
able to get a hand or leg in the way of Gadzuric’s pass, fans
would likely be talking about the dawning of parity in UCLA-USC
basketball.
Of course, Knight could have missed the shot. Or, maybe not.
“I can hit wide open threes all day,” he said,
grinning.
Billy Knight for three.
You’ll forever see it, forever hear it, forever talk about
it.