When March Came In, They Left Like Lions

March madness, this is.

Chris Knight, a 6-foot-9 man who understands magic, drives to LAX Thursday and boards a plane for Japan.

He would rather stay home, watch the NCAA basketball tournament on television, fill up on memories.

But he plays for the Aisin Seahorses now. Or is that the Taiwan Suns? Maybe the Hermosillo Owls?

None of his recent employers remind him of the Loyola Marymount Lions, for whom he played starting center for three weeks in March 1990.

“So what does it matter?” he says. “No matter where I go, I’m never going to find something like that.”

He climbs on a plane anyway, continuing the search, only 12 hours from the next cheer.

March madness, this is.

A bearded Jeff Fryer slides a homemade tape into the VCR at his Newport Beach home.

Off goes this year’s NCAA tournament game between the giants of Massachusetts and Arkansas.

On come five guys from the neighborhood.

Five guys with oversized jerseys and wide eyes and expressions that shout, “Is this really happening?”

A clean-shaven version of Fryer sinks a three-point shot while falling into the pep band. A skinny Bo Kimble disappears into a mob at the foul line, then emerges under the basket for a layup. Baby-faced Knight and Tony Walker run a fastbreak that leaves three future NBA players breathless.

Loyola Marymount 149, Michigan 115.

A victory by an 11th-seeded team over a defending national champion in the second round of the 1990 NCAA tournament.

A victory by Southern California gym rats who, two weeks earlier, watched their star player and leader, Hank Gathers, collapse on the court and later die.

It has been six years now. Fryer has played in three countries since then. He smiles.

“It still feels like yesterday,” he says.

In his darkened den, his face is wearing that expression again.

He can’t shake it.

The blessing, and curse, for four starters on the 1990 Loyola Marymount Lions is that none of them can.

Since their courageous run ended with a loss to eventual national champion Nevada Las Vegas in the regional final, Knight, Walker, Fryer and Kimble have done nothing but play basketball.

Even if that basketball was in a European gym with bleachers on only one side. Even if they knew they would be showered by coins with every missed free throw. Even if they were paid only $20,000 a year.

Only one of them, Kimble, has played in the NBA. None of them, especially not Kimble, has been a star.

Yet none of them has been able to give it up. It was as if they showed up fresh-faced at the Big Dance, and came home drugged.

“Playing so well for those three weeks, that showed us how fun the game could be,” says Fryer. “I think, since then, we have tried to get a little glimpse of what we had.”

Tried, and failed.

Fryer has played for obscure teams from Boca Raton to Dusseldorf.

Knight has played in Hong Kong, Mexico, Taiwan and Japan.

Walker has played in Belgium, Switzerland and the Philippines.

Kimble, after failing with the Clippers and New York Knicks, spent time in France and even played for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s traveling all-star team in games against the Harlem Globetrotters.

We imagine he didn’t rack up many wins with that club.

Understand this while you are watching this year’s NCAA tournament games.

The charm of the sport may have been sold to some shoe company. But the desperation of its underdogs is still honest. The pain of its losers is still real.

Because of the difficulty in making the NBA, the last shots by many in the NCAA tournament are often the last truly meaningful shots of their lives. You can tell the ones who understand by their tears.

After six years, there is not one soul on the 1990 Loyola Marymount Lions who does not understand.

A blessing. A curse.

“Basketball has not meant one thing to me since that loss to Las Vegas,” Knight says. “It’s like, I haven’t even cared.”

Walker, a 6-1 guard, said reality hit him with a recent knee injury and the wishes of his 5-year-old daughter.

“I do not want to be 30 years old and not have a job,” says Walker, 26. “We all got caught up in the excitement of everything, and at first I wasn’t wanting to go into the real world. But now, I know I have to.”

No one can blame them for having fun. But they all know it’s time.

Eight months after a game in which he dunked the ball for the first time, Fryer maintains he has indeed quit.

Yet he has not accepted a full-time job. And foreign teams are still on the line.

A tape of the Loyola-Michigan game is still playing as a guest is leaving Fryer’s house.

He is asked, “Are you going to watch the rest of it?”

“What the heck,” he says.