Trying out my luck at UCLA basketball

I could’ve been big. Huge. Larger than life.

I would’ve been the biggest thing to hit this campus since
who knows when.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. If this is confusing, let me
explain.

I tried out for the basketball team last Saturday. Not just some
random basketball team, but the actual UCLA men’s basketball
team ““ the most storied program in all of college
athletics.

The team of John Wooden and Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
Gail Goodrich and Bill Walton. Jackie Robinson and Ed
O’Bannon. And I could have been next in line. Sort of.

The Bruins decided to hold open tryouts for any full-time
student for the chance to be a walk-on for the upcoming season.
Being a lifelong UCLA fan, I grew up imagining I was Tyus Edney
making that end-to-end layup to save the 1995 championship season.
I jumped at even the slightest chance to put on the same uniform.
You can’t succeed if you don’t take a shot sometime in
life, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have any illusions
about actually making the team. I’m 5 feet 7 inches, 155
pounds, Asian, and don’t jump very high. My greatest
accomplishment in organized basketball is leading my under-12 youth
team in free-throw percentage … at 42 percent.

I was actually a pretty good athlete in high school, but I
played water polo and swam. If Adam Krikorian was holding open
tryouts, I might have had a shot, but instead it was Ben
Howland.

Still, I figured this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass
up. Actually, newly promoted assistant coach Scott Garson was the
one running the tryout, but I was still thrilled to get my shot at
the big time.

I’ve been inside Pauley Pavilion plenty of times.
I’ve even played there for intramurals, but Saturday still
felt different. It was as if, just for a little while, I could be
part of UCLA Bruin basketball.

There were 15 people there in all, and I was easily the smallest
one. Several UCLA athletes from other sports were there too,
including several volleyball players, a 6-foot-6-inch water polo
player and a track athlete who was nominated for the
McDonald’s All-American game. This would be a piece of
cake.

Coach Garson started us out with a simple layup drill. Make a
pass, get the pass back, take one ““ and only one ““
dribble and lay the ball off the glass. Simple enough. Luckily, I
didn’t blow my first shot.

Then we moved to the left side. Now I was in trouble. Back in
the day when I used to actually play basketball every day, I could
hit a left-handed shot and do all sort of things like dribble.
Nowadays, not so much.

Like I said before, I was an aquatic athlete in high school.
Give me a rectangle of water, not 94 feet of hardwood.

Now, getting to the basket and laying the ball up seems simple
enough. Not if you’re only 5-foot-7-inches and get only one
pass and dribble to get from beyond half court to the hoop. Suffice
it to say I couldn’t get to the basket without taking two
dribbles, and I don’t think I made a shot.

Luckily we only went through the line a couple of times.

We then did the same drill with short mid-range jumpers and
threes where I think I acquitted myself much better. It
wasn’t like anybody else was raining threes like Reggie
Miller, so I felt a little better.

Then we moved into doing a three-man weave. Here’s where
my 12-under basketball-team experience really paid off since I
actually knew how to run the drill. It’s simple enough, but
slightly confusing if you’ve never done it before.

After that, we broke into three teams of five and scrimmaged for
the rest of the day. The whole tryout only lasted an hour, but that
one hour was pretty awesome.

It was not just a tryout to make the team because, of course,
realistically I had no shot. Coach Garson had told us right from
the start that they might take three of us, but maybe none of us
and that none of us would probably ever get into a real game. If
they took anybody, it was to help out the team during practice to
help them get better.

What Saturday taught me was just why the UCLA men’s
basketball team is as good as it is these days. Last year’s
trip to the Final Four doesn’t seem so improbable to me
anymore. The Bruins prepare for success.

Even in the tryout, each drill was completed to emphasize
fundamentals like good passing, spacing and good communication.
During the scrimmages coach Garson stressed the importance of
pushing the ball on offense and pressuring the ball on defense. I
must say, I was pretty winded after about three minutes of
scrimmaging, and I think even the other intercollegiate athletes
were tired too.

If this is the way the basketball team practices, it’s
pretty easy to see why they are so good. They simply play sound
team basketball. On offense, tempo and ball security are coveted
above all else. Communication is key and so is the extra pass to
open teammates.

On defense, ball pressure is stressed above all else, as is
boxing out and position. If you don’t rebound, you
don’t play.

So in the end, I didn’t make the team. One of the big
volleyball players did, but my feelings aren’t hurt. I had
fun. Coach Garson said I didn’t embarrass myself, so
I’ll always have that.

Above all else, for an hour on a Saturday, I got to say I was
part of the team (sort of). I had my “Rudy” moment. My
“Invincible” moment. I am Kelvin Kim.

And when the team tips off its season in November and makes
another deep run through March, I’ll have a deeper
understanding of just what makes UCLA basketball so great these
days.

Just as John Wooden would have had them do, the team prepares
for success, something that I will always remember from my one
moment in the sun.

E-mail Lee at jlee3@media.ucla.edu

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