Holton Brings Out the Best in Knight

Jason Kapono remains the Bruins’ most dangerous outside threat, but sharpshooting guard Billy Knight clearly has found his comfort zone since the victory at Stanford on Feb. 3, when he scored 22 points to help his team to a monumental upset.

Knight said his game has grown quite a bit since 1998, his freshman year, and he credits some of that development to assistant coach Michael Holton, a fellow left-hander. When Knight was a freshman, he and Holton would play one on one every day after practice. The games were to five, and no more than three dribbles were allowed.

“He used to beat me every day,” Knight said. “The whole summer [before my sophomore year], my goal was to be able to come back and beat him. That just helped me out with my offensive game, being more solid and jump stopping more, not being so out of control, and taking the open shot.”

Knight came back for his sophomore season and promptly beat Holton in one of those games. The two haven’t played since.

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The Bruins, who have defeated three ranked teams in the past two weeks, finally cracked the USA Today/ESPN top 25 poll, voted on by a panel of 31 Division I coaches. UCLA is No. 23, moving into the spot occupied by USC, which fell out of the poll this week.