Pyramid Scheme

Travis Reed was sitting smack-dab in the small pond, the place he chose after some self-discovery, to come to play basketball.

The Pyramid at Long Beach State is hardly a dump. National championship banners do dangle here . . . for volleyball. Still, it’s not UCLA’s storied Pauley Pavilion, where Reed cut his teeth as a college basketball player, then cut out.

But Reed, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound junior center, has been to that mountaintop, playing two seasons for the Bruins. He prefers the foothills.

Reed, baseball cap on sideways and well-worn lollipop in his hand, looked around the Pyramid and nodded. This, he said, is where he belongs.

“This place is not big and stuff,” Reed said, “but it’s a nice place. Everyone here feels like family.”

Former relations will be busy today.

Up north, UCLA, led by point guard Earl Watson, will play at Stanford, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. Watson is still at UCLA because of Reed. The two roomed together as freshmen, and Reed refused to let Watson, who grew up in Kansas City, Kan., succumb to homesickness.

Watson hung out with Reed, ate tons of pizza with him--well, Reed ate the lion’s share--and became “my other son,” according to Olivia Reed, Travis’ mother. So Watson stayed at UCLA. It was Reed, unhappy with his role and lack of playing time, who left.

Today, in the Pyramid, his home away from home, Reed will lead the 49ers against UC Irvine, the No. 1 team in the Big West Conference. College basketball ponds don’t get much smaller, yet Reed enjoys making a big splash there.

He was named the Big West’s player of the week on Monday, for the second time this season.

He had 17 points and 10 rebounds, helping the 49ers rally to beat Pacific on Jan. 27. He had 15 points and 13 rebounds in a victory over UC Riverside on Jan. 24.

Reed is averaging 14 points and a conference-leading eight rebounds.

Tadeu Souza and Vance Lawhorn, two 6-8 junior college transfers, were expected to contribute to the third-place 49ers (12-9 overall, 5-3 in conference) this season, but both were injured before the first tipoff. James Williams, a 6-9 returning starter, was hurt two games into the season.

That left the inside game to Grant Stone, who averaged five points last season, freshman Kevin Roberts and Reed, who sat out last season as a redshirt.

“I figured out you don’t need to go to a big program to get noticed,” Reed said.

Or to be happy.

Reed wanted the bright lights, big cities when he was a senior at Fontana’s A.B. Miller High. He first committed to Long Beach State, then got starry-eyed when bigger programs began calling him.

It was out of character.

“He was a kid who was in the spotlight, but you would never know it to look at his locker,” said John Romagnoli, Reed’s coach at Miller. “He didn’t have 10 pairs of sneakers. He didn’t have postcards from schools hanging there. He didn’t want to be a distraction to our team. His locker looked no different from anyone else’s.”

Yet Reed did get caught up in keeping up with the other big-time basketball Joneses. Villa Park’s Eric Chenowith picked Kansas. Woodbridge’s Chris Burgess picked Duke. Santa Monica Crossroads’ Baron Davis and Westchester’s Billy Knight picked UCLA. Jason and Jarron Collins of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake picked Stanford.

“They were all my friends,” Reed said. “I was as good in high school as they were. I thought, ‘Why should I sell myself short? Why shouldn’t I go to UCLA?’ If I knew then what I know now, I would have stuck with Long Beach.”

UCLA wasn’t a horrible experience. The friendships were good. But Reed looks back now and comes to a conclusion: “The only time I was happy at UCLA was off the court with the team.”

Yeah, off the court was great. He and Watson became roommates and close friends.

“We went to see ‘Scream II’ and the next day, I put on this Scream mask and knocked on his door,” Watson said. “He got scared. I just chased him through the whole campus. He was running, going, ‘Come on, man, come on.’ He thought I was really going to get him.”

Said Reed: “I didn’t know it was Earl until we both got tired. I’ll get even with Earl when I find out what scares him.”

UCLA did, at first. Watson suffered during his freshman year. He was a long way from home and just about the only thing that kept him off the next plane was his pizza-munching roommate.

“Travis would call [the pizza parlor] and give his order,” Watson said. “They wouldn’t even ask the address. They just sent his bags over. I think he was employee of the month there once. He may be a part-owner by now.

“We spent a lot of time together on weekends. He could have gone home, but he stayed with me because he knew I was homesick. His family treated me like I was their son. I miss Travis.”

As a freshman, Reed showed flashes as a player, especially after center Jelani McCoy quit the team in February 1998. Reed scored 11 points in 22 minutes in an NCAA tournament victory over Michigan and, with Davis injured, started against Kentucky in the Sweet 16.

The Wildcats, who won the national title, routed the Bruins, but Reed was a bright spot. He had seven points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.

“There were 40,000 people there and 35,000 were for Kentucky,” Reed said. “I couldn’t hear myself think.”

What he did think, afterward, was that he had established himself for the 1998-99 season, especially since the Bruins were losing three senior starters. He had a role. Coach Steve Lavin agreed, but he defined it differently.

Highly touted recruits Dan Gadzuric, Jerome Moiso and Matt Barnes--all inside players--came in as freshmen the next season. They limited Reed’s duties.

“I think coach wanted me to be a bang-around guy and foul out,” Reed said. “That’s not my game.”

He played only eight minutes in UCLA’s loss to Detroit in the NCAA tournament. He spent the next week burning up the phone lines to his parents.

“Even before, I could tell he wasn’t happy,” Olivia Reed said. “I could look at him and see he didn’t want to be there.”

Watson begged Reed to stay, but this wasn’t about being homesick.

“The main thing is, I’m having fun, “ Reed said about his transfer. “At UCLA, I was maybe scared and nervous.

“You walk across this campus and everyone says hi to you. I like that. At UCLA, you’d run into 50 people who didn’t know anything about you. Here, everyone knows you.”