The Ray Young story seems to never get old.
The senior, who until seven games ago was headed for a UCLA
career defined by disappointment, has emerged as the leader on a
team which had played most of 2002-2003 like a bunch of
followers.
“Like any senior, I want to go out with a bang so that
it’s not tearing me up inside,” Young said. “So I
started relaxing.”
Young might have solidified his legacy in a new, positive way
after his gutsy performance against No. 1 Arizona on Thursday. With
UCLA trailing by three points and just five seconds remaining on
the clock, Young stepped up and hit the biggest three-pointer by a
Bruin all season to tie the game and force overtime.
Young showed an incredible amount of heart by taking the
do-or-die shot. If he had missed, he likely would have been accused
of bad shot selection at the least, ball-hogging at the most.
But he wasn’t thinking about that.
“I said if I get the ball, this thing is going up,”
Young said. “I wanted the ball. It is kind of like a
playground shot, a shot I hit with confidence.”
Since Young moved to point guard for the injured Cedric Bozeman
on Feb. 20, UCLA has gone 5-2 and has shown that it really
isn’t as bad as the 5-16 team that started the season.
Arizona coach Lute Olson thinks Young is the driving force
behind the Bruins’ directional change.
“I think with Ray at the point guard position, he creates
a lot of problems because he is a scorer,” Olson said.
“If the point guard is a scorer, it opens up a lot of passing
lanes.”
Scoring isn’t something that Bozeman brought to the table,
but Young is able to drive the lane and force defenses to collapse.
Therefore, Young has the option of going up strong to the hoop or
dishing out to an open teammate on the perimeter.
“Ray is playing with a lot of confidence now that he
wasn’t playing with before,” Olson said in comparing
Arizona’s first two blowouts with Thursday’s game.
Young has won a lot of respect for his play the past seven
games, not just from Olson and the UCLA coaching staff, but also
(and most importantly) from his teammates.
In the locker room after the game, teammates had nothing but
praise for Young.
“Ray Young. That guy has been doing great things for the
last seven games,” forward T.J. Cummings said.
“He’s stepping up and knocking down big shot after big
shot.”
And none were bigger than the shot Young hit last night. It
saved UCLA’s season and his own reputation as a clutch player, both
left for dead just three weeks ago.