BYU Danny

When Brigham Young stunned Notre Dame at the buzzer in the 1981 NCAA Regional finals, it was Ainge's end-to-end, beat-the-clock layup that did it.

"I always said Danny was a smart ballplayer, but that was the single dumbest mistake he ever made - particularly when I made the shot before it," chuckles then-Irish star Kelly Tripucka, now a TV analyst for the Nets. "The worst part is, I've had to watch it every March for the last 22 years."

Every roundball junkie in America saw Ainge's daring dash.

"That was probably the defining moment of his college career," says M.L. Carr, who played with Ainge for four years on the Celtics. "Everybody noticed that."

It was Carr who'd given Ainge a bit of sage career advice when he'd first arrived: "I told him, Danny, Jerry West and Pete Maravich didn't get into the Hall of Fame by passing the ball."