Knight Time

In his three seasons as a UCLA basketball player, Billy Knight has seen the Bruins at their best and worst. But there’s one way he never wants to see them again: from the couch in his apartment.

That’s where Knight was sprawled last season when he briefly quit the team. Frustrated by his limited playing time, he sat out the Purdue game with the intention of transferring to Long Beach State.

” It was really weird just seeing them play on TV,” Knight said. “I thought, ‘Dang, even if I leave, my parents are still going to be watching these UCLA games.’ It was strange.”

Strange enough, in fact, to leave Knight wracked with regret. He called Coach Steve Lavin the next day and sheepishly asked to rejoin the team. Lavin agreed, ran the idea past the other players, and Knight was back at practice the following week.

“We were happy to have him back,” point guard Earl Watson said. “We missed Billy just because we had lost so many other players who transferred or left school early. It was devastating when he quit. I just tried my hardest to talk to him, support him and let him know that we do need him. I knew his time would come.”

Now, everyone knows. Knight, who will start at shooting guard against California tonight, has emerged as one of the best long-range shooters in the Pacific 10 Conference and has been a big part of the Bruins’ recent success. They are 7-0 since moving him into the starting lineup against Stanford, where he scored 22 points and paved the way for a landmark victory.

Knight’s defense, the weakest part of his game last season, has improved significantly. That was apparent in the Stanford game when he put the defensive clamps on star guard Casey Jacobsen, who went four for 18 from the floor.

“Billy has had a breakthrough, a quantum leap on the defensive end of the floor,” Lavin said.

That might be, yet the thing people first notice about Knight is his marvelous shooting touch. In the last month, he has led the Bruins in field-goal percentage (.574) and three-point shooting (.516). In an overtime victory at Oregon State on Saturday, he made three shots from behind the arc--including one from his favorite spot, the corner, that gave UCLA a four-point lead with 50 seconds to play.

“If teams leave me wide open, I’ll make that shot all day because I practice it all the time,” Knight said. “I know I get a lot of shots there; it’s hard to guard somebody out there.”

Since the Stanford game, Knight has followed a curious statistical pattern. He has been solid on Thursdays, scorching on Saturdays. In the last three Thursday games--against USC, Arizona and Oregon--he averaged 6.3 points on seven-of-17 shooting (41.2%). In the last four Saturday games--against Stanford, DePaul, Arizona State and Oregon State--he averaged 19.8 points on 26-of-39 shooting (66.7%).

Regardless of the day, few if any Bruins log more practice time than Knight, who averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds during his senior season at Westchester High. He routinely hangs around long after practice working on his game. He and assistant coach Michael Holton used to play one-on-one every day, a ritual that screeched to a halt when Knight finally won.

“Playing him in one-on-one every day gave me a quality opportunity to teach him to use the dribble to get shots off in an effective way,” Holton said. “He learned to be really strong with the ball, use the shot fake to create an advantage, and mastered getting his jump shot off in one or two bounces.”

Despite briefly quitting the team, Knight started the final six games last season and played a big part in the Bruins’ come-from-behind victories at Cal and Stanford.

He started this season’s opener against Kansas, then came off the bench the next five games before getting two more starts, against Hawaii and UC Irvine. His role was constantly in flux in large part because Lavin is forever juggling the lineup. The Bruins have used eight combinations of starters this season.

“T.J. [Cummings] and Jason Flowers are going through a little bit of what I went through last year,” said Knight, referring to two teammates whose playing time has dropped off in recent weeks. “I just tell them to stay ready and practice hard. A lot of times, no one really talked to me when I was sitting. No one really knew how upset I was. I think it’s sort of a blessing for me to have seen things from both sides.”