Alex Stepheson can hurt UCLA again

Your sweetheart turns you down for somebody 3,000 miles away. Nothing personal. It’s them, not you.

But things don’t work out -- family issues -- so your crush moves back home, where you’re waiting, thinking you have a chance.

Only your crush turns you down, again, and starts dating your neighbor.

That’s why today’s UCLA-USC showdown is awkward for Trojans forward Alex Stepheson.

UCLA recruited him “real tough,” he says, out of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake High in 2006, but Stepheson chose North Carolina.

Then when he returned to the Southland to be near his ill father after his sophomore season, UCLA jumped on him again, but Stepheson chose USC, just barely.

“I was a day away from being a Bruin,” he said.

Stepheson sat out last season after being denied an NCAA transfer waiver. Because both UCLA’s and USC’s rosters were rebuilt this season, he gives the Trojans an edge because of his skills in the paint.

“It’s amazing how massive and strong he is,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said. “He just manhandles people in the post and can throw you around.”

The 6-foot-9 junior put on 15 pounds of muscle (he’s listed at 235) during the summer and looks as if he were carved by Michelangelo. His nickname: “Big A.”

Through 14 games this season (he missed the first two because of injury), Stepheson is averaging 10.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.6 blocks.

“Explosive” is a word USC Coach Kevin O’Neill uses often, but the coach stresses Stepheson’s development.

“He is a young player who is learning the game still,” O’Neill said.

For Howland, who went after Stepheson twice, not landing the big man was “disappointing.”

“We were really high on him,” he said.

At Harvard-Westlake’s practices, Howland was there. Games too.

And if Howland couldn’t make it, his assistants did.

“I’m sure he talked to my mom more than he talked to me,” Stepheson said.

Said his mom, Diane: “It was a hectic time.”

North Carolina’s appeal and tradition drew him east.

But in the middle of his sophomore season, his mom called with bad news: “Your dad is in the hospital right now. I want you to come home right now,” Stepheson recalled.

He did, and stood bedside over the man who put him in his first basketball league at 3 1/2 years old, who recorded all his high school and college games and gave feedback, who was always there for a game of one-on-one in the backyard.

His dad, Art, was suffering from heart problems he said stemmed from a poor lifestyle. “Seeing him there was hard,” Stepheson said.

“He’s my baby,” Art said. “We are real tight. My friends call him my best buddy.”

Art told his son he was fine, and Stepheson returned to Chapel Hill. But Stepheson worried about his dad still, and at the end of the season, he decided to transfer back to L.A. to be near him.

“He was having a great time at North Carolina, but his love for his dad took priority,” Diane said.

Back in L.A., he watched his ex-teammate Tar Heels win the 2009 championship. Art watched too. Stepheson had no regrets, but Art said “I didn’t want him to [transfer] because I thought I would be OK.”

(Art is doing better since he stopped smoking, improved his diet and started exercising more.)

The first school that called him after he was granted his release was Art’s favorite and one Stepheson liked too: UCLA.

After visiting Arizona State, Stepheson was all set to commit to the Bruins before then-USC coach Tim Floyd persuaded him to take one last visit to the place Stepheson’s mother and sister, Erin, attended.

“And Coach Floyd convinced me to be a Trojan, so I became a Trojan,” Stepheson said.

Playing time was a factor. The Bruins were stacked and had a lineup that seemed hard to crack, whereas Floyd told Stepheson he could “play a lot of minutes right away,” Stepheson said.

Floyd left during in June amid allegations of scandal, but unlike the three Trojans who went pro and the five recruits who decided to go elsewhere, Stepheson stayed, calling this season a “challenge” he wanted.

He lives about 10 minutes from home now, and he stops by often for a home-cooked meal, to do his laundry, or to “get into my pockets,” Art said, laughing.

Art still records all his son’s games and they go over them, side by side, just like they used to. “It’s been very nice having him back,” Art said

The highlights on those tapes are often Stepheson’s favorite play: a blocked shot that sails into the stands.

“Just go up there and throw it out of bounds. There’s nothing like it,” he said.

Makes sense. Rejection is kind of his thing.

Just ask UCLA.

baxter.holmes@latimes.com