BIRMINGHAM, Ala.. -- Memphis and the rest of Conference USA are hereby forewarned: Squeaky's last stand is at hand. Better come to play.
Carldell "Squeaky" Johnson is down to his final handful of games as a UAB Blazer. The stretch run starts Thursday night at home against the No. 3-ranked Tigers, continues into the C-USA tournament and then, he fervently hopes, into the NCAA Tournament. The fact that he ever suited up at UAB is surprising enough, much less the fact that he's evolved into the most annoying defender in America.
So wrap your head around this: a guy nobody wanted coming out of high school; a guy who spent a year of college paying his own way, mowing grass and playing in the intramural gym; a dreadlocked little man who cannot shoot and does not score, but changes games with his defense and distributing; a New Orleans native whose mom lost everything in Hurricane Katrina ... that guy is the key player in UAB's bid to get off the bubble and into the Big Dance.
In fact, he's the key player for any number of teams silently hoping for the Blazers to stumble out of the field of 65 in the next 10 days, creating room for someone else. So it's high time for Hoopsworld to take a look at Squeaky, and to appreciate who he is and where he comes from.
Three years ago, long before he ranked eighth in the nation in both assists and steals while leading a 20-win team, Squeaky was an anonymous teenager working for UAB campus grounds keeping. Before class he'd mow grass, earning money to pay for school and food.
"I was dirty all day," Squeaky said with a smile. "I had to go to class smelling like gasoline and motor oil."
Johnson's path out of downtown New Orleans was a labyrinthine one. He had neither the grades nor the game -- at least in recruiters' minds -- coming out of Marion Abramson High School. Squeaky said his high school "didn't keep stats for real, like keeping up with steals or assists."
Those are the only individual stats that matter to Johnson, who wound up at Salt Lake Community College in Utah.
"A big culture shock," he said.
After one season there, he returned home for the summer and made a fateful trip to Birmingham with his AAU coach and another player. They came to play pickup ball with the Blazers, who had a new coach named Mike Anderson. It didn't take Squeaky long to get his future teammates' attention, which led to Anderson's attention.
He saw the perfect fit for his Nolan Richardson Redux style, which the marketing folks at UAB call "The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball." If you're going to play pressure defense, this was the guy to lead it.
"He can be a one-man press," Anderson said. "It doesn't make any sense to go over and trap his guy. Squeaky can take care of that himself."
It wasn't exactly a tough sell for Anderson. The 5-foot-10 Johnson said he had a scholarship offer from Southeastern Louisiana, and that was it.
"I had to get my academics in order," Squeaky said. "Coach A promised me that if I took care of my business, I'd have a scholarship the next year."
Squeaky took care of his business, then took over the UAB team. He was starting by January of his first season, and went on to lead the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.8 to 1).
"I've never seen anybody make the adjustment to D-I basketball faster than Squeaky," Anderson said. "With him, all we've done is won."
That's in part because all Johnson does is try to win, fitting the textbook definition of a point guard's role. He's certainly never tried to glamorize his own game by jacking up shots, averaging just 4.3 field-goal attempts his first two years. Even this year, when he's looked to shoot more, Squeaky still has gone 13 straight games without attempting double-digit field goals.
Every season, Johnson has more steals than baskets. This year, his high game for hoops made is six and his high for steals is 12, just one shy of the NCAA single-game record.
"He doesn't predicate his game on offense," Anderson said. "He's more about the toughness. He's got a big heart."
UAB's record in Johnson's three seasons is 64-26 -- but March is when the Blazers get really scary. Their record in that month with Johnson at the point is 9-4, including a couple of stunning NCAA Tournament upsets.
In 2004, two days after winning a withering 102-100 first-round game against Washington, ninth-seeded UAB took down the tournament's overall No. 1 seed, Kentucky. That was the cornerstone win of Anderson's tenure at the school.
Last year, UAB squeaked in as a No. 11 seed, then proceeded to absolutely thrash No. 6 LSU in the first round. The final score was 82-68, but the lead was as high as 26.
Thus a reputation has been established: You don't want to play the Blazers come tournament time. Their combative style is too unorthodox and too rare (for some reason) to adequately prepare for.
"Nobody likes that," said assistant coach Matt Zimmerman. "Nobody likes pressure. Everyone would rather have somebody laying off them instead of in their face."
Watch one UAB practice and you see that pressure is simply ubiquitous.
Anderson divides his team into two equal fives -- no first team trampling the second team here -- and scrimmages. He likes to play a lot of players in a lot of different combinations, so this gets them used to playing with one another.
"I trust my bench," Anderson said. "I'm gonna see whether you trust your bench. That's what it gets down to."
Anderson officiates the scrimmages and rarely blows his whistle. Contact is to be endured, and he doesn't want to stop play very often. Stamina is the bottom line with UAB's style.
By the end of practice, players are going full-tilt for seven minutes at a time. No whistles, no breaks, and no slacking back into a soft zone. After a one-minute water break, they do it again.
"When we get in games," Anderson said, "I can tell my team, 'Guys, I need a seven-minute drill right here,' and they know what that means. If you can stand out there seven minutes at a time, boy, you're in shape."
Said Johnson: "That's the thing we need -- the extra effort, the extra dive for a loose ball. A lot of times we have to come up with loose balls in order for us to win."
This UAB team has had to rely more than ever on hustle and pressure after losing its best offensive player, Demario Eddins, to a season-ending Achilles tendon tear midway through the year. Without him, the Blazers can be ugly offensively, as their 38-point showing at UTEP in February showed. But they compensate by leading the nation in turnovers forced and ranking second in steals.
And that all starts with Squeaky, who is nearing a most unlikely starring role on Senior Night. His mom, Elise Ramsey, who nicknamed her son Squeaky after the character on "Laverne and Shirley," will be in attendance. She moved to Birmingham after Katrina rendered the family home in the Skyview neighborhood of New Orleans a total loss.
Ramsey did not evacuate ahead of the hurricane, going first to the Superdome for a couple of days and then the Houston Astrodome. Finally, she relocated with her son. She hasn't missed a game all season.
"It's been fun having her around," Squeaky said.
UAB fans will say the same thing Saturday night, when Squeaky Johnson plays his last home game, against Marshall. He'd love to be a pro one day, but just playing in college has been special enough.
"Even if I don't play basketball no more, I'll be satisfied," he said. "Just by having people say they want to play defense like me, or 'I like the way you hustle out there, I want my kids to play like that,' that means a lot."
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.