Ucla Gets Lucky With Little Edney
This was the kind of victory, Jim Harrick was saying, that teams need along the way to win a national championship.
And after two rounds of the 1995 tournament, he was glad his top-ranked UCLA Bruins were among the contenders who have already chalked up a dramatic - maybe even lucky - victory.
Arkansas got its second in a row on Sunday. Georgetown also got one in the second round, and so did Memphis. Tulsa won dramatically in the first round and the Golden Hurricane is in the Sweet 16, too. Every national champion for that past 10 years has had at least one game in the tournament that has gone to the buzzer or even beyond. Each has needed a little bit of luck - the kind of luck that UCLA has not gotten for two decades.
“I don’t know about UCLA,” Harrick said, “but Jim Harrick was owed one.”
Two years ago in the second round, Harrick’s Bruins had Michigan down by as many as 19 points in the second half before the Wolverines tied it late and won it in overtime. Michigan reached the NCAA final that year.
It was that experience that entered the minds of UCLA players and coaches after the Bruins had nipped Missouri on Tyus Edney’s length-of-the-court dash. Edney went all the way in 4.8 seconds to beat the clock and the Tigers.
With the score tied in the final seconds against Michigan in the second round of the ‘93 tournament, Edney had a clear path to the basket on a fastbreak, but he passed the ball to Ed O’Bannon. Jimmy King intercepted for Michigan to sent the game into overtime. The Wolverines won, 86-84.
“I think Tyus learned from that,” O’Bannon said. “The last time he gave it up. This time he kept it. I’m sure he still thinks about it. He carries it with him every day.”
Edney, though, said he merely did what he felt was necessary Sunday, and that the Michigan encounter did not enter his mind.
“I don’t know if I learned from it,” he said. “After the game, you think ‘What if I did this or that?’ But I didn’t flash on it today - I didn’t think about it at all.
“I just thought about getting up the court and getting a shot.”
“That was no fluke,” Harrick said. “That guy has done that for us time after time. There’s nobody else I’d rather have the ball. He’s a great player and in the open court, he’s better than that.”It marked the fifth time in
his career that Edney has lifted the Bruins to victory with their last possession. And in order for UCLA to reach the Kingdome and win the national championship, it might not be the last.
Notes
This will be the second Memphis visit to the Sweet 16 under Larry Finch, but it will be the seventh time that the school has advanced this far. … Arkansas’ bench outscored Syracuse 28-3, leaving the Hogs with a 57-15 edge in bench scoring against their two opponents in Austin. Arkansas, which meets Memphis in Kansas City, Mo., on Friday, has three players from Memphis on its roster. The Tigers list 10 of their 13 players from the city of Memphis. This was the third consecutive year Arkansas has met and defeated a team from the Big East in the second round - the Razorbacks beat Georgetown last year and St. John’s in 1993.