Full-Court Presto : Dollar Is a Handful for Bruin Opponents

SAN ANTONIO — To hear UCLA’s Steve Lavin tell it, anyone who ever paced a sideline outside of Groucho Marx in “Horse Feathers” could outcoach him. But I defy any coach, past or present, to outtalk him. OK, Dickie V. He’s the only one, though.

But Thursday night at the Alamodome, Lavin’s most important instructions were delivered via hand signals. A roll of the fist, the pointing of a finger. Whether the Bruins’ season would come to an abrupt end or continue against Minnesota in today’s Midwest Regional final came down to that.

With 12 seconds remaining in overtime, the Bruins led by two points. Iowa State’s Kenny Pratt was at the free-throw line for the first of two shots. UCLA’s Cameron Dollar looked to Lavin.

Lavin rolled his fist. Interpretation: He didn’t want a timeout no matter how Pratt fared. He wanted the Bruins to run the floor before the Cyclones set themselves defensively. He then pointed at Dollar, and then at the Iowa State basket at the other end of the court. Interpretation: You the man!

Dollar gave him a chance to reconsider, spreading his arms to let Lavin know he thought getting the ball to Charles O’Bannon or Toby Bailey on the wings for a jump shot might also work.

Again, Lavin rolled his fist and pointed at Dollar.

“That’s cool,” Dollar told himself. “I like that.”

Cool, it was. Cool, he was.

After Pratt made the first free throw but missed the second, the Cyclones got the ball back on a traveling call against UCLA and scored for a one-point lead.

Despite the change in circumstances, Dollar never hesitated. He didn’t give Lavin another chance to change his mind. UCLA’s 5-foot-11 point guard took the inbounds pass with 10 seconds left, dribbled the length of the floor, pulled up just short of 6-11 center Kelvin Cato’s pterodactyl wing span and banked home a short jump shot with 1.9 seconds on the clock.

UCLA 74, Iowa State 73.

While the Cyclones were en route home Friday, the Bruins returned to the Alamodome for a news conference. Dollar again was the man.

Media members from other parts of the country were eager to talk to him about Tyus Edney, the former UCLA point guard whose length-of-the-floor drive for a layup beat Missouri in the second game of the 1995 NCAA tournament, a tournament the Bruins won.

For those of us from Southern California, of course, it was deja vu. We asked our questions about Edney when Dollar made a similar end-to-end play with 0.9 seconds left to beat Washington State two weekends ago in the final regular-season game.

Although he has proved he can do a good impression of Edney when necessary, Dollar is a very different point guard. Edney is hiccup quick, offensive minded and a penetrator. Dollar is, well, not.

Edney is in the NBA.

Dollar, a senior, has accepted that he won’t be.

The last thing he said upon leaving the news conference Friday was, “I hope to be seeing you back here in the tournament some day as a coach.”

But his teammates have never lacked confidence in Dollar. They remember his freshman and sophomore seasons, when during scrimmages he would lead the second team to victories over the first team.

That’s the reason they didn’t think it was as big a deal as everyone else did in the NCAA championship game two years ago, when Dollar replaced the injured Edney and contributed six points, eight assists and four steals to the victory over Arkansas.

Some of us in the media devalued Dollar last year, but his teammates didn’t. They knew how difficult it was for him to play with both little fingers heavily taped because of injuries. Coach Jim Harrick said at the time it was “like playing with boxing gloves on.”

This season, Dollar’s improvement has been as important as anything else to the Bruins’ success. It helps that he’s injury free. But he’s also taking more responsibility for the offense.

In the past, he said Friday, he feared his teammates would think he was selfish if he looked to shoot instead of pass. He learned through experience, however, that if he’s scoring, defenses have to guard him. If they’re guarding him, that means they’re not double-teaming someone else.

“I have to make them play me,” he said.

If teams like Iowa State don’t, they pay.

Dollar had a career-high 20 points against the Cyclones. The last shot, of course, is the one he will be remembered for in Bruin basketball lore, as is Edney for the one against Missouri. It says all you need to know about the point guard Dollar has become that Lavin insisted he take it.

Because it went in, Lavin is now reconsidering an important decision he will have to make some day as a parent.

“I was going to name my first-born son Tyus,” Lavin said Friday. “But now I think it’ll be Cameron Tyus. I’m even more indebted to Cameron because he’s covered for all my deficiencies and growing pains as a coach, like last night. I think Tyus will understand.”