His senior season was not supposed to end on the bench. Then again, this year has been marked by the unexpected for T.J. Cummings.
One of the biggest surprises for Cummings was his mother’s decision to move from Illinois to Brentwood to help him get back on track and back on the court while he was academically ineligible.
“My mom was big for me, coming out here,” Cummings said. “I got to spend some time at home, had home-cooked meals again, and just got to hang out with her.
“I had some love out here.”
Cummings, who is from Homewood, Ill., only saw his mother, Vondell, twice a year during his three previous seasons at UCLA. Her arrival was welcomed with open arms. She attended every home game the Bruins played, which Cummings said was an enormous help to him, not only while he sat out the first five games of the season due to academic ineligibility, but right up to Saturday’s 75-60 loss to Notre Dame.
Especially since it was not the storybook ending to what could have been a senior season fairy tale.
Despite yells from the student section of “We want T.J.,” coach Ben Howland cited Cummings’ difficulties guarding Notre Dame’s four-guard scheme as his main reason for taking him out with just over a minute to go in the second half. Cummings did not start the second half and played a season-low 21 minutes.
“It was a poor match-up for him to be able to defend,” Howland said.
Cummings had an especially hard time containing the Fighting Irish’s Tom Timmermans, who scored a career-high 20 points. At one point in the second half, Timmermans easily eluded Cummings, pivoting under the basket in a direction Cummings clearly wasn’t expecting, getting an easy layup.
Cummings’ offense was similarly mediocre, and he finished the night 5-of-11 from the field. His mind frequently appeared elsewhere during certain plays, like one with 2:20 to go, when he charged a Notre Dame player under the basket and air-balled a layup.
He didn’t want to talk about the game afterward, and instead of attending the de rigeur press conference, he spent time signing programs and snapping pictures with fans who were as sad to see him go as the look in his eyes said he was.
And, of course, he hugged his mother.
“For my senior night, I knew she’d make an effort to be here,” Cummings said. “But for the whole season ... I never thought she’d see all of it here.”