Cardinal Rules : Without Fanfare, Stanford Is 9-0--Thanks Mainly to Brevin Knight

You got your first look at them on blurry videotape, face down in front of the White House, hugging pavement and ducking bullets.

It was a quintessentially Stanford moment: famous for where they were, not who they were. Watched and then forgotten.

Two days after the Cardinal basketball team emerged from a guided White House tour on Dec. 20 and witnessed the police shooting of a knife-wielding man, Stanford had to settle down and play some basketball.

But instead of turning in a jangled, nervous performance, the unheralded and often ignored Cardinal rose up and upset then-No. 21 Virginia at the Cavaliers’ new arena in Charlottesville, Va.

“It was a shock to see that,” sophomore point guard Brevin Knight said of the shooting. “But our mind-set was to beat Virginia.

“We talked among ourselves to make sure we didn’t let it become a distraction. It happened. Sorry the man got shot, but we’ve got to win a basketball game. We’re on this trip to win a basketball game, and that’s what we did.”

With Knight raising his game to new levels of speed and efficiency, the Cardinal beat Virginia, 64-60, sending the first, loud signals that this was a Stanford team worth watching out of more than curiosity.

Then, Stanford and Knight followed that up with a 17-point derailing of the next No. 21 team, Wisconsin, at Maples Pavilion. Against an opponent featuring All-American swingman Michael Finley and future NBA first-round draft choice Rashard Griffith, Knight was easily the best player on the floor, scoring 26 points, with nine assists and five rebounds.

Suddenly, a basketball program that has had its share of success the last decade but has never been able to grab consistent attention was the hot talk of the NCAA and 9-0 for the first time since 1953-54.

But just as Stanford was moving itself into the top 25, it got bad news. Knight had to sit out last Thursday’s victory over Cornell after doctors discovered a weak spot in the shin bone of his right leg that, if not rested, would probably lead to a stress fracture.

Knight didn’t practice this week, and his status will be re-evaluated before the Cardinal opens conference play tonight at Washington.

Still, against the odds, Stanford, whom the prognosticators pegged for sixth or lower in the Pacific 10 Conference, sits undefeated--and, as is usual in this calm corner of the sports world, uncertain whether to celebrate the roll or worry about the implications of it.

“We’re 9-0, and whether we can sustain that, I don’t know,” Coach Mike Montgomery said the day after beating Cornell, with his concern over Knight an implicit part of his thoughts. “Whether we’re legitimately that good, as far as the numbers (go), I don’t know.

“The pieces of this puzzle fit together right now. The pieces fit together with (Knight’s) quickness, somebody else’s size, somebody else’s physicalness, this guy’s shooting . . . I mean, it all works.

“But you take the one element away, then some of the others aren’t able to do what they do best.”

Without Knight against Cornell, Stanford won by 12 points. The Cardinal played sound but less than scintillating basketball, struggling to create shots and looking a lot like a team that, with quality players but without its star, does not belong near the top of the polls.

“It’s true,” Montgomery said. “‘Brevin brings an awful lot of things to our basketball team. Like most good players on any team, he makes up for some other people’s deficiencies. He kind of masks them.

“He has the kind of influence on our team maybe that Jason Kidd had on Cal. He’s a security blanket. You know what he can do, he very rarely turns it over, he handles pressure . . . and he penetrates and everybody’s aware of him on the court.

“We’ve got kids with a lot of pride and with some toughness, and even if Brevin were to be out, they’re not going to say, ‘Well, that’s that.’ We’ll compete. But we probably won’t be a top-20 team.”

Last season, Knight’s freshman year, Stanford had one of the best young backcourts in the nation with Knight and hot-shooting Dion Cross, won 17 games, was close to winning several others, and made it into the NIT. But in the talent-glutted Pac-10, that meant a tie for fourth and the prospect of battling merely to maintain that spot this season.

This year, with Cross, Knight and the heart of that team returning, Montgomery added a key ingredient, 7-foot-1 freshman Tim Young from Santa Cruz, an agile big man with a talent for scoring inside.

But the revelation has been the 5-10 Knight, who was last season’s conference freshman of the year and is only better this season. Knight, assuming the role of team leader, is burning opponents for 17.3 points, seven assists and three steals a game and played his best games against the two ranked opponents.

Montgomery argues that Knight, who was a virtual unknown coming from high school in East Orange, N.J., but blew out everybody in the Stanford gym beginning with the first practice last year, compares favorably with any point guard in the nation.

“The other things (besides shooting) a point guard does, in terms of handling, the quickness, the defense, he’s as good as any of them,” Montgomery said, giving the nod to Arizona’s Damon Stoudamire on the shooting end. “There’s not anybody who’s quicker, not anybody who handles it better.”

Not only does he bring the kind of speed that for once can keep the Cardinal even in blazing battles with UCLA’s Tyus Edney and Stoudamire--”He dominated the game as much as I’ve ever seen a point guard dominate a game,” Wisconsin Coach Stan Van Gundy said--Knight this season has provided focused, fiery energy to a team that sometimes needs the push.

“We have athletes, we have people that can run the floor,” Knight says. “We might not have people who can jump over you, but we do have people that can get out and run the floor.

“I think what I do is bring that out in them. If I’m going to run, they’ll run with me.”

Assuming Knight’s leg problem is only a minor setback, how high can the Cardinal, given its lack of quality depth because of grade requirements, realistically fly?

“A realistic goal is to finish in the top three (of the conference),” Knight said.

For Montgomery, this season is a chance to make some noise and set a foundation.

Young is only a freshman, and although he’s already averaging more than 10 points and almost 10 rebounds a game, Montgomery is handling him carefully and has kept his playing time relatively short. And Arthur Lee, a highly touted point guard prospect from North Hollywood, leads next season’s strong freshman class.

So, when Montgomery, who came to Stanford from Montana in 1986, is asked if he hasn’t been tempted to leave Stanford when his name has been discussed for a couple of “big jobs” at higher-profile schools, he winces.

“There’s a perception that this isn’t (a big job) and something else is,” Montgomery said. “I disagree with that. There’s no reason that this shouldn’t be. It’s how the perception is.

“You know, we beat UCLA five straight times (with the Todd Lichti- and Adam Keefe-led teams of 1988-89 and ‘89-90), but we’re not UCLA in anybody’s mind.

“You kind of wonder why this just has this lid on it, this cap on it in perception--that Stanford is only this. I’m aware it’s tough, and I’m aware of the limitation in college basketball, men’s basketball, that grades conjure up.

“But we’ve done pretty well. I mean, we’ve averaged probably 18, almost 19 wins. A few years ago, we were 12th in the country. Well, there are not many people who can be 12th in the country.

“Now, can we win the national championship? Aw, who knows? But who in our league has? It’s not like guys are going out and winning it every year. And would I want the headaches (UCLA Coach Jim) Harrick has? He’s got great players, but boy, does he put up with a lot of junk.”

In Northern California, the NFL’s 49ers dominate attention, and the rest of the focus is usually divided among luminous local personalities--the Golden State Warriors’ Don Nelson, former Warrior Chris Webber, Barry Bonds, Tony La Russa, among others.

“Sometimes you think nobody knows you exist here,” Montgomery said. “But you get outside of here, this little pocket, and a lot of people know what we’re doing and a lot of people appreciate the program here.”

So is that why Montgomery spoke with such sweeping optimism about his team’s future a few months ago at the Pac-10 tip-off luncheon?

“I was trying to maybe get somebody to understand that we ain’t dead yet,” Montgomery said.