COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : This Time, Edney Doesn’t Wait Long to Make His Move

OAKLAND —  Having captured the attention of the nation in 4.8 seconds last weekend, the obvious next question for Tyus Edney was: Now, what to do with it?

Feats of immortality come with expiration dates in the NCAA basketball tournament. On Sunday, you can set the baseline-to-baseline land speed record in Boise, stave off the infidels from Missouri, spare Jim Harrick the wrath of talk-radio nuclear meltdown and top every highlight show across the land, but if you don’t win on Thursday, the play that made UCLA’s season becomes the harshest line in the autopsy.

See, they were lucky to get that far.

Edney figured the best thing to do was keep on running. Destination: hoop. Even with Mississippi State’s 6-foot-11 swooping crane, shot-blocker supreme Erick Dampier, doing what Missouri never even fathomed--clog up the diamond lane to the basket.

Edney didn’t flinch, or alter his course. Twice in the opening minutes of Thursday’s West Regional semifinal, Edney went right at Dampier, scooting into the key and drawing the big Bulldog out of his cage.

Twice Edney bumped into Dampier, twisted his body around outstretched arms and banked in impossible shots that elicited gasps from the crowd, a whistle from the referee and pumped fists from Bruin teammates.

“You see this guy who’s 5-10, the smallest guy on the court, coming right at one of the top shot-blockers in the nation and he throws in these two amazing shots,” UCLA center George Zidek said. “It gets your adrenaline going. It makes you smell blood and go right at it.”

UCLA trailed, 7-4, before Edney set off on the first of his wild rides. After the fact--after the Bruins’ 40-19 halftime advantage, 36-point second-half lead and 86-67 victory--it rings as a strange-but-true statistic.

Yes, UCLA was actually behind in this game.

And, yes, it was Edney who cranked the ignition again--only somewhat earlier and less dramatically this time around, which was fine by everyone in the Bruin locker room.

“I’ll take a blowout any time, definitely,” Edney said, grinning before his new-found friends in the national media. “Winning this way is always more fun.”

Edney’s final numbers were rather routine: 10 points, eight assists, 25 minutes. But he dominated the game when it broke apart, first with his drives around Dampier, then with a couple of spectacular lobs to Ed O’Bannon and Toby Bailey for baskets that seemed to crush Mississippi State’s spirit.

“This is a good feeling,” Edney said. “We went out there and took care of business, put them back on their heels right away.

“The Missouri game kind of woke us up. We realized we can’t have those kinds of games in this tournament. Tonight, we showed that if we play unselfishly on offense and hard on defense, we can have wins like this.”

Three rounds in, this is shaping up as Edney’s tournament. The player-of-the-year votes are headed Ed O’Bannon’s way, but for UCLA, the story behind this playoff run is being written by the tiny but troublesome legs of Edney.

Glancing at the TV cameras mobbing Edney’s stall, O’Bannon nodded and said: “He deserves it. He’s done some great things for this team. He’s won countless games for us--not quite like he did against Missouri, but in ways that don’t get a lot of notice.

“To me, he’s one of the two best point guards in the country, the other being (Arizona’s) Damon Stoudamire. And Ty has outplayed Stoudamire head-to-head a number of times. I may be biased, but it’s as simple as that. Ty is one of the most underrated guys in the country.”

Those two shots over Dampier that all but sucked the oxygen out of Oakland Coliseum Arena?

“He does it, literally, all the time,” O’Bannon insisted, straight face firmly in place. “I’ve seen him do it time and time again in practice. He’s good at it. He goes in there with two feet off the ground, jumps into the defender, banks it off the glass and usually draws the foul.

“It’s a great play, but it’s nothing new to us. We’re just happy to see him do it in these games.”

Zidek, the foreign-exchange center from Prague, seemed confused by the commotion.

“What else do you expect from a player of his quality?” Zidek wanted to know. “He is a great player. He is the quickest guy in the nation. The best ballhandler I have seen.”

And now, all Americans are beginning to notice too.

“I hope so,” Zidek said. “It is due.”