Bruins Better Be on Guard

The homecoming he has so looked forward to is also the one that, for the longest time, he didn’t want.

Jason Hart didn’t want to leave Los Angeles. He wanted to play point guard at UCLA.

When no scholarship offer came--the Bruins liked him, but wanted to keep the path clear for Baron Davis--Hart signed with Syracuse. And then he really didn’t want to leave Los Angeles.

That Syracuse refused to release him from the letter of intent in the spring of 1996 at first made Hart angry. Now, as a junior on the threshold of what he hopes will be one of the great moments of his career, the memory comes to him as a blessing.

He has already set the school record for career steals.

He is the leading scorer on a team ranked 21st in the nation, averaging 13.8 points a game.

And today, he gets to play at Pauley.

Finally.

“I’m getting more and more excited,” Hart said. “You get the chance to play against UCLA, the school you always wanted to go to, and also to play at home. That makes it even better.”

Said Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim: “I’m trying to get him less excited. That’s the problem coming home. You do get overly excited to play, but he’s always pretty excited anyway. He’s an emotional player.”

And one who has had about a year and a half to think about today’s 12:30 game against the Bruins and longtime friend Davis, ever since Boeheim told him early last season that Syracuse had scheduled the game to build its Southern California recruiting base. Hart is from Inglewood High and his teammate, freshman Tony Bland, is from Westchester High.

About 20 of Hart’s family members went to Las Vegas when Syracuse played there last season, so Hart said an even bigger turnout is expected at sold-out Pauley Pavilion.

It’s the same group that has seen him flourish after the difficult decision to go east in the first place, the group that lived through the ordeal that struck the entire family during his senior year at Inglewood and prompted Hart to reconsider Syracuse.

His brother, 24 at the time, was suffering from kidney failure. Hart didn’t want to be so far from home and during the Christmas holiday season he asked to be released. The Orangemen, he recalls, wanted him to stick to the commitment.

“It was basically, ‘No, we’re not going to do it,’ ” he said. “They said they didn’t have any other point guard. It was basically a thing where they had to look out for themselves.”

It got so bad that Hart went months without talking with Syracuse officials. The agony of the family over the illness had been compounded by Jason’s emotional pulls.

Finally, rather than sit out the season, he decided in June to go to Syracuse, on schedule. Good things started to happen.

In October, his brother got a donor kidney for a transplant--from his father.

In the freshman basketball season that followed, Hart started all 32 games and became the first freshman to lead the Big East in minutes, becoming a conference all-rookie selection while leading Syracuse in assists and steals.

A year later, he was again in the opening lineup every night, 35 games.

By late in his junior season, he has become a leader on a team with only one senior in the top eight.

“I’m happy at Syracuse,” he says. “But back then, I’m 18, going to Syracuse, just out of high school, I had never really been away from home. But it all worked out.

“I look at it like everything happens for a reason. I signed here in the first place because at that time, it was the school for me. Everything has turned out perfectly.”

With the chance for more than that coming today.

BRUINS WIN: Maylana Martin helped the UCLA women defeat USC, 82-64. Page 7