UCLA’s Tyus Edney reflects on his NCAA tournament buzzer beater, 25 years later

The former Bruins point guard joined his former assistant coach Steve Lavin and Yahoo Sports' Krysten Peek to discuss his memorable coast-to-coast run that kept UCLA alive and propelled them to the 1995 national championship.

Video Transcript

KRYSTEN PEEK: I'm Krysten Peek here with former UCLA and St. John's head coach Steve Lavin, and we're joined by former UCLA point guard Tyus Edney. Tyus, it's been 25 years since your famous buzzer beater to beat out Missouri in the NCAA Tournament. What has been your reaction to it?

TYUS EDNEY: Oh, it's been, I mean, memory lane, really. I think somewhere, somehow they're showing our game, if you can still see it without the 4K technology. But it's just a good time of year, and unfortunately they're not playing right now because there's always memories every year.

STEVE LAVIN: Take us through the timeout prior to the mad dash of the length-of-court, buzzer-beating shot in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Boise, Idaho, and in that timeout, Coach Harrick's instructions and then also as you walked on the court leaving that timeout what Coach Harrick said to you.

TYUS EDNEY: So yeah, we were-- we were all in the huddle worried. Coach was not though. I know-- I know you remember how calm he always was. And, you know, he gave the instructions. And walking out he just grabbed me and said, look, I want you to shoot the ball. Do you understand what I'm saying? You shoot the ball.

And so I'm just thinking to myself, yeah, yeah. OK, Coach. OK. And, you know, I got Ed yelling at me, give me the ball, give me the ball. You know, like, that was normal. [LAUGHS] And it was normal for me to get him the ball.

So my thought was, you know, let me get the ball down the floor as fast as I can, either to get Ed the ball or just get us a good shot. So, you know, I knew that Coach said that, and I think he knew how to get to me because as the play developed, it just developed for me to get to the rim.

STEVE LAVIN: Tyus, how has that shot changed your life? I mean, obviously it was a national championship-- the only national championship won by a coach other than John Wooden when it comes to men's basketball. It was Jim Harrick's pinnacle of his coaching career. But how has it changed your life?

TYUS EDNEY: It's something-- I never knew the impact that it would have at the time. You know, I know you remember too. Just when you're kind of going through it, it's just-- you're just on the ride, and you just want to keep it going.

And my thought at that time was we just need to win a championship, you know? And I think that was just-- we were so focused on that goal and focused on accomplishing that that, you know, even though that shot happened and we moved on, the most important thing was that we were moving on and we had another game to play. And I think as a team, we just kind of-- we all said-- and I'm sure you remember. Like, we were just-- we just said, that's enough. You know, no more of those games. We're going to be focused, and we're just going to try to take care of business from then on out, and we did. I mean, that's what we did.

But the impact-- I never knew that it would impact so many people the way it did. Just what-- people tell me stories all the time. I love it. You know, they always say, oh, I know you're tired of hearing it. I'm like, no, I'm not tired of hearing it. I love all the stories that I've heard because they're great-- I mean, people dropping their kids and putting holes in walls and, like, [INAUDIBLE]. It's just-- it's nonstop, but I love every minute of it.

STEVE LAVIN: Well, you saved our entire coaching staff's jobs because it's well chronicled that if we hadn't won that game against Missouri, we were going to all be fired the following day. So for that alone, everyone on that staff feels incredibly indebted to Tyus Edney. If I had a first born, as I've said before, it would be named Tyus, whether it's a boy or a girl, and there's still time for that. It hasn't happened yet.

TYUS EDNEY: A little bit. A little bit. [LAUGHS]

KRYSTEN PEEK: Well, Tyus, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for joining us on Yahoo Sports.

TYUS EDNEY: All right. Thanks for having me, guys. Oh yeah, I promise I don't have this picture with me all the time.

[LAUGHTER]

STEVE LAVIN: No, you did that for us. We appreciate your flexibility.

TYUS EDNEY: I don't wake up to that every day. I promise.

STEVE LAVIN: Thank you, Tyus.

TYUS EDNEY: All right