Tyus Edney

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Tyus Dwayne Edney (born February 14, 1973 in Gardena, California) is an American professional basketball player, known for one of the greatest plays in college basketball history. Edney played point guard for UCLA from 1991-1995, and led the Bruins to the 1995 NCAA National Championship. He is listed at 5'10", 152 lbs.

1 Basketball career
2 The shot
3 External links
4 Notes

[edit] Basketball career

In his senior season, he set several personal bests, in such categories as total points (456), points per game (14.3), steals (74), and assists (216). At the end of his collegiate career, he was selected drafted by the Sacramento Kings in the second round, with the 47th overall pick, of the 1995 NBA Draft. He played with the Kings for two seasons. He spent two more seasons in the NBA, with the Boston Celtics in 1997-1998 and with the Indiana Pacers in 2000-2001 (playing for Euroleague winner Žalgiris between those seasons). But he could never top his rookie year with the Kings, when he averaged 10.8 ppg and had 491 total assists. Following his departure from the NBA, he has bounced around several European teams, including Benetton Treviso from 2001-2004, Virtus Roma in 2004-2005, Olympiacos in 2005-2006 and Fortitudo Bologna in 2006-2007.

Edney was voted Import Player of the Year in the 2002 EuroBasket All-Europe Rankings.^[1]

[edit] The shot

While Edney's pro career has been vagabond, his late game heroics in the 1995 NCAA Basketball Tournament earned him a spot in the collegiate lore, like Danny Ainge in 1981 or Bryce Drew in 1998. UCLA had played well in the 1994-1995 season, earning a No. 1 seed in the West Region of the tournament as well as the top ranking in the national polls. Favored in their second round match against eighth seed University of Missouri - Columbia, UCLA fell behind 74-73 with just 4.8 seconds remaining. Bruins coach Jim Harrick called timeout and turned to Edney, the point guard.

Cameron Dollar inbounded the ball to Edney who took off up the left sideline. As Edney moved up the floor, the Missouri defenders all appeared fearful of fouling him, which might have allowed him to win the game at the free throw line. Though they moved into his path, they then took great care to stand still, not touch him and not reach for the ball. This allowed Edney to weave around each defender fairly easily and then continue advancing down the court. The defenders may have felt that with such weaving, Edney would not have time to get all the way to their basket, but if so, they underestimated his speed. Edney did in fact make it all the way to the Missouri basket and laid the ball up at the last possible moment. The ball hit the backboard and fell through the hoop as time expired, giving UCLA a 75-74 victory. Madness ensued, and four consecutive wins later, UCLA was crowned national champions.