COMMENTARY : Bruins Reclaim Some of the Glorious Past

Suddenly, with 90 seconds left in the game, it was all right for John Wooden to get up from his seat and walk away from the court at the Kingdome and back into the past. Wooden knows more about nights like this and games like this than any other coach in the history of college basketball.

And now he knew how this game, between UCLA and Arkansas, would end. It would end with UCLA a champion, again and at last. UCLA was ahead of Arkansas by 10 points and now this was a Monday night that was like all the others for UCLA. Once, they all ended like this.

A great champion named Ed O’Bannon, out of Artesia High School in Lakewood, had taken UCLA back to the place at the top of the sport it had once owned, year after year after year.

This was the night, 20 years after UCLA last won the title for Wooden, when O’Bannon had taken his place with the greats of UCLA’s past, when he had carried them to the top the way Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did, and the way Bill Walton did, and even Marques Johnson, who played for the 1975 team and whose son now sits on UCLA’s bench.

This was one Monday night of college basketball, just one night, when O’Bannon played as big as the past.

Wooden was gone when O’Bannon dunked the ball in the last minute, and brought a great big UCLA sound out of all the blue-and-gold at the UCLA end of the Kingdome, and out of the past.

O’Bannon could have been through a few years ago when he tore up his knee, required major reconstructive surgery. But he has always had the heart of a champion. He showed it to the world Monday night. The dunk gave him the last of his 30 points. He finished with 17 rebounds.

And it was more than that last Monday night. There was no Arkansas player, not even former champions like Corliss Williamson and Scottie Thurman, who could match the will of O’Bannon and his teammates with the title on the line in the Kingdome. That is why UCLA won, 89-78. That is why UCLA’s Bruins, under a marvelous coach named Jim Harrick, are back at the top of the sport.

“I stayed positive all game long,” Ed O’Bannon said when it was over. “We won by faith tonight, not sight.”

Somehow, UCLA did all this without Tyus Edney, who had been the best player in the Kingdome in the semifinals, and even more than that. “I thought that all the way through Saturday’s games, Tyus had been the best player in the NCAA Tournament,” Harrick would say when it was over.

But Edney had landed on his right wrist Saturday against Oklahoma State, trying to block a shot by Randy Rutherford. Edney had no chance to block that shot, but it had been a tournament in which he was sure anything was possible. He is listed at 5-9, but Toby Bailey, when asked if that was his teammate’s real height, laughed and said, “In his dreams.”

Still Edney had a dream run in this tournament. Against Missouri, he had only kept his team’s season alive by beating the world down the court and making an off-balance playground shot at the buzzer. Even after hurting his wrist, he was the best player on the court in the national semifinals.

He tried to play against Arkansas. Could not.

Now there would be times when it would be Ed O’Bannon and two sophomores and two freshmen against the champions of college basketball.

And there was George Zidek, the 7-footer from Prague, in there against all the linemen in Nolan Richardson’s front line.

For a couple of years, no other team in the sport had been able to stay with Richardson’s team when the games mattered.

Duke could not do it in the final Monday of the 1994 season. But this was a new season, a different sort of Monday.

Now the Razorbacks were in there against Ed O’Bannon, who had come all the way back from a nearly ruined knee to a game like this, against a great champion like Arkansas.

“I’ve know Tyus since the fourth grade,” Ed O’Bannon had said on Sunday afternoon. But now he had to try to win the title without him.

The first half was played at wild, video-game speed, and sometimes the action was wild enough to be video-game action, all over the place. It took Arkansas’ Razorbacks a while to figure out that UCLA, even without Edney, was as quick as they were, that their hands were just as fast.

Time after time, one of the Arkansas players would come down with a rebound and before he could even make an outlet pass, the ball was gone. Before they knew it, Ed O’Bannon or his brother Charles or Toby Bailey were inside making another tough shot in traffic.

Somehow, with Tyus Edney in so much pain he could not even clap for his teammates, UCLA led by a point, 40-39, at halftime. Somehow, the Bruins were ahead of Arkansas 65-53 with 11:25 to play.

Maybe John Wooden had brought magic with him in addition to history, when he got out of a long white limousine about 5 o’clock Seattle time Monday afternoon. He was with a friend from the Arthur Andersen company named Don Currin, and applause then followed John Wooden all the way into the Kingdome.

“It must be nice to hear that kind of applause, Coach,” Don Currin said, gently holding on to Wooden’s right elbow and leading him into the kind of night Wooden once owned.

“It’s always nice to be remembered,” Wooden said, on the night when Harrick’s team would try to make some history of its own.

With 3:54 left in the game, and in the college basketball season, Ed O’Bannon made two free throws. UCLA was ahead by 10 points, 75-65. Williamson, the MVP of last year’s Final Four, was 2-for-15.

A sophomore named Cameron Dollar out of Atlanta, son of a famous Atlanta high school coach named Don Dollar, had stepped in for Edney at the point, against the best defense in the sport, and had performed like a champion. On the night when all of Harrick’s players tried to make UCLA a champion again.

Arkansas could not catch up with UCLA, or catch UCLA. The Razorbacks could not stop Ed O’Bannon, or Charles O’Bannon, or an amazing 6-5 UCLA freshmen named Toby Bailey, who ran past Arkansas and jumped over Arkansas for 26 points.

UCLA should not have had a chance against Arkansas. But it did. There was so much history in the Kingdome, so much magic. And, according to Ed O’Bannon, so much faith.

There was no faith required when John Wooden got out of his seat, and waved, and smiled, and began to head for the exit.

There were no surprises now.

He had seen enough of Ed O’Bannon, who could have played for him.

Wooden had seen enough of UCLA. All the nights looked like this once.