Billy Knight has career game against Stanford

  The Associated Press Junior guard Billy
Knight comes up with the loose ball in the second half of
the unranked Bruins’ win over Stanford. In his fifth start of
the season, Knight took up the Cardinal challenge and silenced the
Stanford crowd with a three-pointer in the first eight seconds of
the game. Knight was the game-high scorer with 22 points.

By AJ Cadman
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

PALO ALTO, Calif. “”mdash; The Bruins turned out the lights on
the previously top-ranked and undefeated Cardinal Saturday and
might have been caught uttering two words at the end of
regulation.

Good Knight.

It looked like a lost weekend for UCLA, which lost to California
by 29 points less than 48 hours earlier and faced the daunting task
of facing the nation’s No. 1 team.

But they had seen this before and Lavin recalled a key factor to
UCLA’s win last year in similar circumstances.

“When I think of the Bay Area, I think of Billy
Knight,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said at Tuesday’s
weekly press conference. “He was the key that weekend (last
year). We were struggling to hit baskets.”

At last year’s Miracle at Maples, Knight had 11 points in
18 minutes off the bench. His three three-pointers in the first
half provided the spark for the Bruin offense to erase an 18-4
deficit and get within two heading into half time.

Saturday was Knight’s golden opportunity in just his fifth
start of the season. And he rose to the challenge.

He silenced the well-documented Stanford Sixth Man ““ the
raucous student section ““ quickly with a three-pointer just
eight seconds into the contest. He went 4 of 6 from the field for
nine first-half points, including a baseline jumper with 20 seconds
left in the half to put UCLA up 40-37.

Meanwhile, Knight drew the tough assignment on defense, guarding
sophomore Casey Jacobsen, the Pac-10’s fifth leading scorer
and the Cardinal’s leading scorer. Knight held Jacobsen in
check to an uncharacteristically low 1-of-7 shooting in the first
half.

“(Jason) Kapono is a lot like Jacobsen in many
ways,” Knight said. “That helped me in practice to be
able get my shot off over a guy like that and play aggressive
defense.”

“Billy disrupted (Jacobsen’s) rhythm,”
co-captain Earl Watson said. “His defense has always been a
knock on him, but he played great defense today.”

The second half proved that the first 20 minutes were no fluke.
While in recent games Stanford had let teams stay close going into
halftime, the Cardinal’s second half starts dispatched
opponents’ ideas of tarnishing Stanford’s perfect
record.

In the first five minutes of the second half Knight had eight
points, extending the Bruin lead from three to nine at 50-41.

“I finally got my chance,” he said. “I had
worked hard all summer on my game and up to this point, I
wasn’t going to give up.

“Everyone was telling us we were going to lose except for
us.”

As expected, the Cardinal mounted a charge and took a
short-lived 53-52 lead, their last of the game. But Knight closed
the door on Stanford moments later.

With UCLA in the half court set and the shot clock winding down,
he got the ball at the top of the key. Seeing that the Bruins
needed to put up a field goal attempt or get whistled for a 35
second shot clock violation, Knight called his own number.

Dribbling to the left wing with Jacobsen shadowing, Knight
pulled up from three feet beyond the arc at 10:37 and nailed a
three-pointer that gave UCLA the lead for good.

“He made big shots today, and we expected that,”
Watson said. “It’s nothing new to us. During summer
pickup games, Billy was dominating NBA two-guards.”

“Our defense could not stop them when we needed to,”
Jacobsen said. “We needed to have played more tough and
serious on defense.”

From there, UCLA put together a 10-2 run to jump out to 66-56,
prompting ABC Sports color commentator Dick Vitale to yell,
“Upset City!” Knight added two free throws later to
finish with a career high 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting and 3 of 7
from behind the three-point line.

On the defensive end, Knight put the handcuffs on Jacobsen, who
went 4 of 18 from the field and 2 for 8 from long range for a
team-high 17 points.

“Billy Knight turned our season last year,” Lavin
said. “We were down 16 to Stanford last year and he loosened
things up (on offense) by hitting some big shots. He loves these
rims and many feel this is a shooter’s court. And as the old
saying goes. “˜Have a hunch, get a bunch.'”

“We remembered last year’s game,” Cardinal
point guard Tony Giovacchini said, “but it didn’t
really pay off for us in learning from our mistakes. Guys we
didn’t expect to have big games against us were huge.

“Billy Knight dropping 22 points on us today was the
difference.”