Role Models

A high-arching jump shot over a long set of Cincinnati arms? A bouncing drive through three Mississippi-sized bodies?

In his backyard, Billy Knight faces stiffer competition.

Literally.

In his backyard, Billy Knight flies past those players as if they’re mannequins.

Because they are.

In his backyard, Billy Knight is no dummy.

The four other guys are.

The NCAA tournament is normal stuff for UCLA’s hot-shooting guard, who has grown up marching to the madness of pickup games against horror-movie props.

“It’s wild, man,” Knight said.

As a quirky L.A. story to accompany a quirky UCLA team to the Sweet 16 this week, it’s perfect.

When Knight was a bench-warming sophomore center at Westchester High, his father Bill smartly decided his son’s only chance at a college scholarship was through a jump shot.

Billy, at 6 feet 6, was one of the tallest guys on the squad, so his father decided Billy needed something to shoot over.

Dozens of trips to swap meets and hardware stores later, Bill Knight’s son became the only basketball player in town with his own permanent visiting team: four dummies, all with long arms and great wheels, patrolling the small Ladera Heights backyard court between five makeshift baskets.

None of the dummies have names, but they all have game.

One seven-footer has a glaring face and an endless reach.

“That guy’s blocked my shot before,” Knight said.

Another seven-footer has a leather gut and plastic foam wings.

“I got so mad at him once and threw a ball at his face,” Knight said.

There is a 6-foot-9 power forward with the photo of a kick boxer tattooed on his chest.

“I can bounce off that one,” Knight said.

And there is a 6-foot guard who can spin and skid.

“He can move,” Knight said.

For seven years, Knight has maneuvered through his midway freak show while throwing up shots at carnival baskets.

One has a rim that is a few inches too small.

Another sits underneath a dangling string that can only be hit with a perfectly arched shot.

Underneath it all is a shopping basket filled with balls, one the size of a pumpkin.

“That’s Big Ball,” explained Billy. “If you don’t shoot Big Ball perfectly, it won’t go in.”

When his father set up the dummies, Billy reacted like any typical teen-ager whose parents have worked and sacrificed to create something special on his behalf.

“I wouldn’t go near the stuff,” he said.

But the longer he sat on the bench, the more he realized he didn’t have a choice.

“If I wanted a college scholarship, I had to remake my game, I had to become a shooter,” he said. “I figured the dummies couldn’t hurt.”

Well, actually, they could hurt, especially when he bounced off their boxing-bag torsos on the way to the basket.

But he started using them anyway.

He would shoot over them from the three-point line his father had spray-painted onto the concrete.

“I would put the seven-footer in my face,” he said, thus explaining why the nation saw him shoot nothing but rainbows last weekend.

He would line them up and dribble around them, thus explaining why he shoots so well off screens.

“Those guys can set some screens,” he said.

Soon, he and his younger brother Eric would turn on the lights and turn on the gutted-out radio in the corner and play two-on-four until after midnight.

Knightmare Alley, they called it.

By the way, why just four?

“If they need a fifth, I’ll play,” said his father, a retiree who used to work in the health inspector’s office.

Knight used the dummies to help him earn a scholarship to UCLA.

He used them two seasons ago to overcome the stinging words of a UCLA assistant who’d told him he would never play at this level.

You’ve probably heard the story about how he immediately quit the team for a day, but was talked into returning by a homeless person in Westwood.

“The guy asked me if I had done everything I could do to stay on the team, and I had not,” Knight said. “So I came back.”

When he did, the dummies were waiting for him, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

He used them to work his way into the starting lineup in the middle of last year.

After a splendid weekend in Pittsburgh, he’s using them even now, this week, Monday afternoon to be exact.

He came home on the team’s day off to work the dummies. You can tell, because his practice jersey is still draped over the shopping cart.

Said Knight, “They still help me find my shot, get my rhythm.”

Said his father, “People still don’t believe it. But they work.”

Of course, Knight also works.

When it comes to honing the sort of shooting that resulted in 21 points against Ole Miss and 12 important points against Cincinnati, nobody works harder.

Knight doesn’t have the keys to Pauley Pavilion, but he knows who does.

He began borrowing them and using the gym at midnight last year, initially with company.

A janitor called the police and told them that a bum had broken into the building and wouldn’t stop shooting threes.

When the cops recognized Knight, they considered the plight of the inconsistent Bruins and told him to keep shooting.

Thus empowered, he was in Pauley Pavilion shooting when Dec. 31 became Jan. 1.

“I wanted to be the first one in the gym in the new year,” he said.

He later took his father and brother to another shooting session that lasted until 1:30 a.m.

“This is why I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.

The sacrifices filled his mind last weekend as he danced downcourt with an infectious smile that has come to represent this irrepressible team.

“I was smiling, just thinking about how much I’ve done, how far I’ve come, all the obstacles,” Knight said.

All four of them.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.