Two big wins. That’s what it’s supposed to take to get to the Sweet 16.

Derrick Bird did it a little differently. Five years, three schools, a blown-out knee. Then two big wins. That’s how Bird — Auburn’s point guard — found his way to tonight’s Sweet 16 matchup with Syracuse.

A five-year lesson in trial and error — one that bruised his ego and drastically changed his basketball game — brought him here. Tonight at 9:40, when Bird tips off in what he calls ‘the biggest game’ of his life, five years that once seemed hellish will feel completely worthwhile.

‘It’s been a long road, but that makes this all the more sweet,’ Bird said. ‘A lot of times, I never thought I’d get here. I thought I was just bouncing around to end up nowhere.’

What made Bird’s journey through anonymity so difficult is that he started somewhere. Somewhere he was excited about. After a standout career at Ypsilanti High School in Michigan, Bird signed with Central Michigan, a budding mid-major less than three hours from home.

He loved the coach, loved the city and loved his teammates. But just before the season started, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.

Then he hated everything.

He cursed his bad luck, redshirted and spent the year rehabbing. When he returned to the lineup a year later, his basketball game had eroded and his minutes evaporated.

Said Jay Smith, Central Michigan’s head coach: ‘He wasn’t quite the same player here after that injury.’

Frustrated that his role in Smith’s system had disappeared, Bird decided to transfer after two seasons — only one in uniform — at CMU. Craving playing time, he enrolled in Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Mich.

He arrived a wreck. His knee still bothered him, but his ego hurt worse. He’d failed in Division I basketball and landed in obscurity. He’d lost confidence in the shot that made him an offensive power in high school, where he averaged more than 20 points.

‘You could see he’d been through a rough two years,’ Schoolcraft head coach Carlos Briggs said. ‘His whole demeanor was down. His confidence was pretty much shot. He needed a chance to start over.’

Schoolcraft gave him one. On Bird’s first day of practice, three teammates offered to stay late to rebound for him. When Bird started the season slow, Briggs told him: ‘Don’t you dare stop shooting.’

Briggs taught him to play defense, too. Long, quick and athletic, Bird had the tools to be a rabid defender. Briggs thought his player was underachieving. He told Bird: ‘Defense is about heart. Do you have it?’

Six games into the year, Bird broke loose. Against Schoolcraft’s biggest rival, he scored 38 points and held an all-league player to two baskets.

‘We saw a different player that game,’ said Ed Kavanaugh, Schoolcraft’s athletics director. ‘And right about then, we started to see a different person, too.’

When his basketball confidence resurfaced, Bird’s smile did, too. He started randomly stopping by Kavanaugh’s office just to say hi. When a teammate would misbehave on a road trip and Briggs would move to discipline him, Bird would wave him away.

‘Don’t bother,’ he’d say. ‘I got it.’ Then Bird would sit next to the troubled teammate and spend the rest of the bus ride talking to him, teaching him. By the end of the season, Bird was the one eagerly staying late after practice to rebound for a teammate.

‘He grew so much here,’ Briggs said. ‘I always tell people, Derrick is an even better person than he is a basketball player. He can do anything he wants. I’m more proud of him than anybody.’

Bird averaged 20 points and five rebounds to lead Schoolcraft to a 32-4 record and the junior-college Sweet 16. He’d rediscovered his shot — making 45 percent of his 3-point tries — and learned to play tenacious defense.

At season’s end, Creighton, Michigan State and Auburn came calling. Bird chose the latter.

‘Auburn was just the perfect fit,’ Briggs said. ‘Every time he talked about it, you could see the fire in his eyes and the joy in his face. So I told him to go. He’d already helped build our program. He was ready for bigger and better things.’

Bird proved so much in his first year at Auburn, starting for the Tigers and averaging 10 points. He earned defensive All-America honors by shutting down some of the best players in the SEC. When he covered a team’s best player, he held him to an average of 6.5 points — nine below average — and 23 percent shooting.

But Auburn limped to a 12-16 record, and Bird still felt unfulfilled.

‘When I came into college, I wanted to play in really big games,’ Bird said. ‘I still hadn’t really played in any.’

He played in one Sunday, when he held Wake Forest star Josh Howard to 14 points — six below his average — in Auburn’s 68-62 win in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Bird is having his best college season, scoring 10 points to go with three rebounds and two assists a game. Most important, he’s got his playing time. Thirty minutes a game to be exact.

‘He’s had a great season,’ said Marquis Daniels, Auburn’s leading scorer. ‘He’s one of the best defenders I’ve ever seen. He guards the top scorer every game and really shuts them down. He dedicates his game to that.’

Tonight, Bird will probably spend much of his time guarding Syracuse star Carmelo Anthony, to whom he gives up four inches.

‘I’m going to limit his touches to the best of my ability,’ Bird said. ‘But it’s tough to shut down any great player.’

‘He’ll do what he’s done all year, and that’s play great defense,’ said Cliff Ellis, Auburn’s head coach. ‘He’s got a good body and a lateral quickness. But more than that, defense is an attitude. It’s a chip-on-your-shoulder, nobody-thought-I could-do-it type of mentality. Derrick’s got it.’

No. Derrick’s learned it.

Published on March 27, 2003 at 12:00 pm