Minutes after UCLA snapped a two-game losing streak over Oregon State on March 2, sophomore guard Jordan Adams spoke.
Reporters on deadline asked Adams and sophomore guard/forward Kyle Anderson, UCLA’s leading scorers in the game and season, two minutes’ worth of questions, and after a moment of silence, the two were free to go.
But with a subtle lunge toward a Pauley Pavilion pressroom mic, Adams attempted to break the momentary awkwardness.
“We would like to apologize to our fans, our family, our coaching staff, our teammates, for not playing that last game due to our issues,” Adams said. “We thank our teammates and all our fans that do support us still. That’s all we wanted to say.”
In three sentences, those issues – never disclosed, but severe enough to earn a one-game suspension for a violation of team rules – were forgiven, and rarely questioned thereafter. By that point, Adams had already sat on the bench and watched his team drop a four-point, just-enough-for-you-to-make-a-difference decision to Oregon in double overtime three days prior.
Punishment enough.
Coach Knows Best
Coach Steve Alford said after the Oregon game, “You always hate suspending.”
That’s true when suspension leads to a loss, as it did against Oregon. It’s true when it has to be repeated over a career, as Alford has had to do several times during his stops along the way to UCLA. It’s especially true considering Alford has experienced it first-hand. Twice.
Alford’s first benching came during his sophomore season at Indiana University in 1985, in which coach Bob Knight, ever the fan of the unconventional, benched four of his starters in a game at Illinois. Knight let them sit and watch as four freshman starters struggled to an eleven-point loss.
The second suspension came the following season when Alford posed for Gamma Phi Beta sorority’s IU male athlete calendar. The act was less intended as defiance – more of philanthropy – but still constituted a violation of NCAA rules. The calendar earned Alford a one-game suspension, requiring him to stay home from a non-conference game at Kentucky.
Alford was Mr. February. He was also livid.
“I watched the Kentucky game on TV the next night and hated it,” Alford wrote in his 1989 book “Playing for Knight.“
Twenty-eight years after Alford’s second suspension, Adams, too, showed how much he hated the role of a passive teammate. He scored 24 points against Oregon State and followed that performance up with a career-high 31 points at Washington.
“It’s big,” Adams said of the bounce-back Washington game. “I wanted to play that Oregon game bad. For these next two games, I was a little bit hungrier to finish it off with a win.”
That hunger, which has shown up plenty at home and in the first game of Pac-12 road trips during the 2013-2014 season, has undoubtedly been a key ingredient to UCLA’s success. Adams, similar to Alford as a Hoosier, has the ability to infuse confidence into his team during stretches. As he goes, the Bruins go.
From the Dec. 19 game against Duke onward, UCLA has gone 14-7. In games where Adams scored 12 points or fewer during that span – or didn’t play – UCLA won just once. When he scored 14 or more points, the Bruins did not lose.
“We knew going in, and he has proven over the year, how big a key he is,” Alford said. “Kyle’s numbers are up and Norman (Powell)’s numbers are up, so that has helped ease some of the pressures. But we are obviously a much better, different team when Jordan’s clicking.”
Topping Dollar
At Washington, Adams stole his way into UCLA’s record books, swiping two steals in less than a minute to pass Cameron Dollar as UCLA’s single-season record holder with 83 steals.
But as Adams trudges onward to collect more postseason steals and accolades, maybe he should shoot Dollar more than a glance in the rearview mirror.
As Adams embarks on his second – and potentially last – collegiate postseason voyage Thursday night in Las Vegas, he could stand to learn a thing or two from a UCLA guard who made his mark when it mattered most.
In the 1995 NCAA title game, Dollar, a sophomore, filled in for injured starting point guard Tyus Edney just three minutes into the contest. He then racked up eight assists in 36 crucial minutes off the bench to help UCLA win its last title to date.
Two years later, in recording what stood for 17 years as UCLA’s record-holding season for steals, Dollar was the heart and soul the Bruins’ team. It was a squad that easily could have folded under interim head coach Steve Lavin, promoted after the dismissal of coach Jim Harrick.
“Looking back at it, we’re all 32 years old at the time and had a senior point guard like Cameron who was a coach on the floor (and) was essential to our staff at that time,” said Jim Saia, then-UCLA assistant coach and now the coach at Cal State San Marcos. “I couldn’t think of a more ideal player for us to have.”
Under Dollar’s leadership, UCLA won its final nine games of the Pac-10 1996-1997 season. From there, the Bruins kept on winning, reaching the Elite Eight thanks to a last-second overtime floater from Dollar to stun Iowa State.
In addition to lightning-quick hands similar to the ones Adams now uses to pester Pac-12 ball-handlers, Dollar had a trait vital to a winning team in a big-time program.
“He knew how to manage the big egos with being a UCLA basketball player,” Saia said. “So Cameron had a calmness about him, and that’s what made him so great.”
From Thursday on out, UCLA’s losses won’t be softened by three days of practice and a mediocre Pac-12 opponent. The Bruins are up to the point where one slip-up could lead to a quiet plane ride home and months of regrets, 23 wins not withstanding.
So, as the Pac-12 tournament opens, UCLA has already demonstrated its biggest offensive need. The Bruins need Adams, their leading scorer and most aggressive rim attacker, to stay calm and keep shooting.
And to have a shot at making something of this season, they need him to do it night after night.
“He’s huge,” said redshirt senior forward David Wear. “We need him to play well in order for this team to go far. But I think he’s really going to step up to the challenge and be ready to go.”