Spartans' West gains redemption

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

The next time, Keith West had vowed, things would be different.

Never again, he said he promised himself, would he have the potential game-winning shot right there in his hands only to see it get blocked.

So, last night, a week after being the goat in a final-seconds loss at Louisiana Tech, West made sure he delivered the game-winning basket on a driving layin with 3.5 seconds left to propel San Jose State to a stunning 55-54 upset of Hawai'i.

The basket that ended the Rainbows' 24-game Stan Sheriff Center winning streak would be a double dose of redemption for West, a 6-foot-2 junior guard, who was kept out of the starting lineup after showing up "a couple minutes late" for the team bus yesterday, according to coach Phil Johnson.

But it was, "what happened last Saturday that stayed in my mind," West said. "I had the shot in my hands and he (Antonio Meeking) came across and blocked it. I didn't know I would get another shot like it so quickly, but I told myself when it came: 'Nobody is gonna get this one.' "

And, nobody, including Michael Kuebler, who was closing on the play, did.

Johnson said: "It was the same-type shot he had last week (with 15 seconds left) only this time he elevated and nobody got near him."

"We have faith in him (West) and knew if he got that kind of a look at the basket again he'd make it," Brandon Hawkins said. "Actually, I don't know how the one last week got blocked. Meeking came all the way across to do it. That was a damn good play. No way anybody does that to (West) again."

This time the play, West said, "wasn't written up for me, but they (the Rainbows) doubled up on Brandon and he kicked it out to me."

Johnson said the final play was designed to give the Spartans "a 2-on-1 and either Brandon take it all the way to the rim or dump it to Antonio (Lawrence) to take to the rim. But they jammed Brandon up early on a double team so he gave it up to West, wisely so."

Said West: "Coach has been telling me they can't guard me on the perimeter and just go for it, so that's what I did."

When West did, he found a surprisingly wide-open path to the basket. Coming out of a 30-second timeout with 11.6 seconds left, UH coach Riley Wallace said the plan was, "absolutely cover your man and no 3s (pointers) but you have to keep the man in front of you and don't let him penetrate. And, if they do, we've got to make rotations to the ball and on the backside, just knock it out of bounds, do whatever you have to do, but make sure we play one-on-one defense and rotate — and we didn't do either one.

"In defense of Michael Kuebler, his man had been going across that middle all night then he faked middle and went baseline and everybody stayed with their man and nobody rotated down there."