COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENTS : Edney Takes the Lead on March to Seattle

And Tyus shall lead us.

Print it on the T-shirts. Draw it on the banners. Let this be the motto for Ed O’Bannon, George Zidek, Cameron Dollar, Charles O’Bannon, J.R. Henderson, Toby Bailey, Ike Nwankwo, Kevin Dempsey, Bob Myers, Kris Johnson and omm’A Givens, their coaches and the student body from the University of California at Los Angeles as they proceed toward the Final Four of college basketball, with Tyus Edney pointing the way.

For it was he who shepherded them through Saturday’s NBA-paced, 102-96 regional triumph over kinetic Connecticut. It was Edney who played every minute, Edney who kept running and running against opponents who believed that they could run the No. 1 team in America right out of this tournament, Edney who in every way resembled Isiah Thomas, for whom he chose that number 11 on his UCLA jersey.

From the school that brought you giants, we now bring you babyface. Smallest man on the court, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 152 pounds after lunch, it is Tyus Edney, the personification of “Hoop Dreams,” who is taking UCLA toward that sweet promised land of years gone by. He saved the day against Missouri and he showed the way against Connecticut, and that is why the Bruins are where they are today.

Many deserve praise. UCLA could not have succeeded without the coaching of Jim Harrick, Lorenzo Romar, Mark Gottfried and Steve Lavin, without months of flight above the rim by the Flying O’Bannon Brothers, without the uncommon maturity of the freshmen Henderson and Bailey, without the slam-bang work at center from Big City Zidek and the ever-more valuable defensive efforts of a certain sophomore who could save time on autographs by just signing: “Cameron $.”

But at the moment of truth Saturday, when the time again came for Dollar and his brother Bruins to get the basketball to somebody who would do something remarkable with it, they got it to Edney.

Three-point-six seconds left. Timeout, UCLA. Not much time before halftime, but Charles O’Bannon calls time anyway. Bruins up by four points. They must go the full length of the floor. Haven’t they been here before?

“We join hands in the huddle,” Dollar describes the situation, “and we say, ‘OK, just like Missouri.’ ”

Connecticut sends in three substitutions. One of them is a 7-foot man named Nantambu. He is no stranger to Dollar. They knew each other in their hometown of Atlanta. His full name is Nantambu Willingham and he has not played one minute of this game until this moment. But the coaches of UConn instruct him to stand directly in front of Dollar, who is 11 inches smaller, when the UCLA man attempts to in-bound the ball.

It is not easy to in-bound a ball over a 7-foot man named Nantambu.

“And I never thought I could get it to Tyus anyway,” Dollar says, “because of what happened with Missouri.”

But he gets it to Tyus, who goes dribbling madly toward the other end of the Oakland Coliseum Arena floor. Looks up. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second. No time for fancy layups like last time. Stops. Pops. Horn goes off. Swish. Three points for UCLA.

The end for Connecticut.

“Yeah,” admits Edney later, soft-spoken as always, “that one might have stayed with them.”

Never again did UConn get closer than three points. And even when that happened, at 56-53, when UCLA had two starters on the bench and reason for concern, it was Edney who popped again for three points, and that was it--game, set and match. Never thereafter did the Huskies come within a field goal’s length of tying the score. They thought they could run the Bruins into the ground. They couldn’t.

“They thought I was going to wear down or something. We play a fast style too,” Edney reminded everyone.

“He was a giant today,” said Harrick.

“All you need to do for Tyus to do well,” said Romar, his right-hand assistant coach, “is tell him he can’t.”

Words failed others. What they saw from Edney amazed many, made them wonder why they hadn’t heard more about him before. Harrick reiterated his oft-expressed opinion that in Edney he had “the PRE-mier defensive guard in America, PRE-mier,” but first-time observers looking for magnificence on offense from the O’Bannons watched instead with astonishment as Edney darted, squirted, spurted and spun.

His father, Hank Edney, afterward smiled and said, “If you had seen him when he was 7 or 8 years old, you would see him playing exactly the same way.”

The way he is playing is almost defying description. In looking for a way, another of UCLA’s top assistant coaches, Lavin, found himself comparing Edney to everyone from NBA playmakers to a Super Bowl football hero to a Harlem Globetrotter.

Lavin said, “Tyus gives us such stability, he reminds me of Maurice Cheeks out there. He’s quiet and he’s a calming influence on all our younger players. And he also has obvious similarities to Isiah Thomas. He’s the quarterback of our team. He’s like a Joe Montana. You feel good when the ball’s in his hands. And he dribbles it like Marques Haynes.”

A natural born leader, if ever there was one.

He might not be large like Lew Alcindor or Bill Walton or Marques Johnson, might not stand head and shoulders above the rest. But look who is back among basketball’s Final Four, finally, and look who has gotten them there. He’s the small one on the run, breaking toward Seattle. Get behind him.