{"id":619353,"date":"2026-02-23T06:45:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/619353\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T06:45:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:45:29","slug":"tyus-edney-savored-donovan-dents-familiar-ucla-heroics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/619353\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyus Edney savored Donovan Dent’s familiar UCLA heroics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The basketball gods apparently wanted Tyus Edney<\/a> to see history repeating itself.<\/p>\n

His history.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the only explanation for how the former UCLA point guard known for his heroic coast-to-coast layup in the 1995 NCAA Tournament came to yell, \u201cYeaahhh Baabyyy!\u201d in a hotel lobby Saturday night after catching the end of his alma mater\u2019s game against Illinois.<\/p>\n

The final 4.9 seconds, to be exact.<\/p>\n

\"DonovanUCLA guard Donovan Dent drives to the basket to score a game-winning basket as he is guarded by Illinois guards Kylan Boswell and Andrej Stojakovic. AP<\/p>\n

Huddling around a phone with the Pepperdine team chaplain after the Waves played Oregon State, Edney arrived just in time to watch after the Bruins called a timeout to set up their final play while trailing by one point in overtime.<\/p>\n

Edney, an assistant coach with the Waves, told The California Post on Sunday that he thought it was curious the Fighting Illini weren\u2019t trying to deny UCLA point guard Donovan Dent<\/a> the ball in the backcourt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking and I\u2019m like, are they going to let Dent catch the ball?\u201d Edney said. \u201cDo they know that would not be ideal for them? And then he was kind of deep in the corner, and then when I saw him cutting across, I\u2019m like, oh my God, they\u2019re letting him catch the ball, and he was off to the races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edney said he was struck by how Dent\u2019s winning layup<\/a> was similar to his against Missouri in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Like Dent, Edney took a pass while curling around in the backcourt and zipped past multiple defenders before being confronted by a big man at the rim. Contorting his body around Tigers forward Derek Grimm, Edney banked in a shot to lift the Bruins by a point in a victory that sparked their championship run.<\/p>\n

\"TyusTyus Edney of the UCLA Bruins celebrates after a game against the Oregon Ducks in 1995. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Dent needed just two dribbles to get to midcourt, where he used a screen from Tyler Bilodeau to shed one defender. Splitting two more defenders near the free-throw line, Dent twisted around Illinois\u2019 final defender at the rim, scooping the ball off the backboard for the winning points in the Bruins\u2019 wild 95-94 victory.<\/p>\n

Edney started screaming \u201cYeaahhh Baabyyy!\u201d, just like UCLA radio analyst Marques Johnson had in Boise, Idaho, that day after Edney went coast to coast in only 4.8 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of perfect timing of being able to see that,\u201d Edney said of getting to the hotel before Dent\u2019s shot. \u201cAnd then the announcer saying as he\u2019s laying it up, like saying Tyus Edney. That was pretty cool, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edney said he understood Dent not having watched his shot \u2014 widely considered the most iconic play in UCLA basketball history<\/a> \u2014 given the generation gap. Dent was not even born when that play was made.<\/p>\n

Edney saw Dent play in person earlier this season when Pepperdine lost to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion but has not met him. Edney texted Bruins center Steven Jamerson II, who played for San Diego when Edney was a Toreros assistant, to tell him to congratulate Dent.<\/p>\n

When it came to Dent getting the chance to win the game in a moment that felt magnificently familiar, Edney said he understood coach Mick Cronin\u2019s<\/a> thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fast,\u201d Edney said. \u201cHe\u2019s the one that I would have given it to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The basketball gods apparently wanted Tyus Edney to see history repeating itself. His history. It\u2019s the only explanation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,160,217,251,231,1400,66,4262],"class_list":{"0":"post-619353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-tournament","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ucla-bruins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116118601378749248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}