ARLINGTON, Texas — Shabazz Napier has his chance to be Kemba Walker.
To plaster another championship banner on the wall of Gampel Pavilion.
To be remembered in Storrs as one of the forever Huskies.
At worst, Napier will leave UConn with his college degree and the championship memories from his freshman year.
That would be more than enough for most.
Shabazz Napier wants more.
One more.
One more One Shining Moment.
Shabazz Napier wants to climb one more ladder, hold one last pair of scissors to snip one last strand from one last net on the last night of his wondrous UConn career.
Of course Napier will need the kind of help from his supporting cast — mainly DeAndre Daniels and Ryan Boatright — he got Saturday night against Florida to keep John Calipari’s Fab Five from making the kind of history Michigan’s Fab Five could not make in 1992 … when Napier wasn’t yet 10 months old.
Calipari’s Fab Five versus Kevin Ollie’s Level Five — a phrase Ollie has adopted for the amount of effort his team needs to put forth.
“We might come up with a Level Six just because it’s the championship game,” guard Omar Calhoun said.
They talk so much and so often about belief and believing at UConn, and it is largely because of Ollie, the coach who had to fill Jim Calhoun’s Hall of Fame shoes, and Napier, the star who had to fill Kemba Walker’s giant shoes.
It is because of the passionate, high-character, brilliant young coach who stunned, unnerved and disrupted Florida with small-ball, and it is because of the selfless point guard that come the last Monday night of the college basketball season, UConn will show up at AT&T Stadium as UCann.
Yes they ’Cann.
“If they don’t believe, we don’t want them to believe now, ’cause them not believing is helping us win,” guard Terrence Samuel said.
They ’Cann because they have Napier, and Kentucky, which has all the size and all the future NBA stars and all the one-and-doners, does not.
They ’Cann because Ollie, the personification of perseverance and mental toughness and sacrifice during his 13-year, 11-team NBA career as a point guard, has served as an example for Napier. They ’Cann because Napier has become a reflection of Ollie. They ’Cann because Napier stayed.
Napier recalled the darkest period of his basketball life, when he felt alone and lost two years ago, and Ollie rescued him.
“I was crying in his arms because I was upset the way I was playing. He was always there for me,” Napier said. “I never had a father in my life, and like I always said, I feel like he was always a father figure to me.”
The baton had been passed to him from Walker, and Napier felt he was dropping it.
“I wasn’t being a leader like I thought I would be able to,” he said. “When you’re losing and you start isolating yourself and you never have any good thoughts, sometimes it brings you to tears. It was tough some days. I always had somebody that was going to be there to pick me up. Some days I didn’t want to get picked up, some days I just wanted to isolate myself, but Coach Ollie and all the coaches always took me up under their wings and just tried to uplift me, no matter what was going on. They continued to believe in me.”
Now they all believe in him. Napier, with assistance from Boatright, cut off the head (Scottie Wilbekin) of the Florida snake. Good luck cutting off the head of the UConn snake.
“[Napier] knows when to be a facilitator or when he’s supposed to be a scorer,” Samuel said.
The freshman guard from Brooklyn considers Napier a big brother.
“I just want him to go out with his career with two championships,” Samuel said.
Napier deserves this unexpected second chance. “Niels [Giffey] can tell you, when we were freshmen, the biggest thing guys said was, ‘Take your chances, take your opportunity now, because you don’t know when you’re coming back,’ ” Napier said. “For us to be back here now, it’s so surreal.”
Napier will fully understand whatever it is the Kentucky freshmen will be feeling Monday night. It was Walker’s time in Houston. It’s his time now.
“I was kind of in a sense of like, ‘Wow! We’re in the national championship game, I’m playing against Butler. … Man, this is crazy,’ ” he said. “We’re back here now, I understand this is my last game. I can’t let the moment get to me.”
No one at UCann believes it will.