Fourteen years ago, Tes Whitlock bolted up the basketball court for the University of Hawai'i and let fly from the right corner a purely-on-instinct, one-handed, 20-foot desperation shot that stunned disbelieving Brigham Young at the buzzer, 73-70.

The play was a finalist for a 1995 ESPY award and remains one of the most celebrated in UH sports history.

"I still get a pizza now and then off that shot when somebody recognizes me," Whitlock said.

But when it comes to the remarkable, the truly improbable, the shot pales in comparison to what Whitlock will do in a return to the Stan Sheriff Center Saturday. There, in a long-time-coming moment of personal triumph, the 36-year-old Whitlock will receive a bachelor's degree from UH.

To anybody who knew Whitlock in his UH playing days (1994-96), he of the baseline-to-baseline smile, glib quotes and hail of net-creasing 3-pointers, that's the one shot we never saw him making.

For all the talk about how he "almost fainted" when that BYU-beater slid through the net, now it is our turn. A degree in sociology — or any other field — once seemed so far off the radar it might as well have been a PhD in nuclear physics.

From his first high-arching 3-pointer in a UH debut against St. Bonaventure, it was clear pro basketball was the gleam in his eye. His world was on the court where he and "Tracy" — as he had named his 3-point shot — were in their element, not academia.

Not because he didn't have the smarts — he had a richer vocabulary than a lot of reporters who covered him and coaches who tried to defense him — but because he never made a diploma much of a goal. "It was never a question of intellectual abilities, just priorities," said assistant coach Jackson Wheeler. "He's always been a bright guy."

Or given to "hard-headed" singular focus, as Whitlock puts it. As diesel-driven as Whitlock was about basketball, he was yawningly indifferent to graduation. And when NBA teams sent feelers his senior year, he fast-breaked from school, leaving pending classwork behind the way he used to shake defenders.

Whitlock played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, pursuing a career in an alphabet soup of minor and developmental leagues.

But while he often returned to Hawai'i and was frequently seen at games and on courts, the classrooms of UH were something else.

Only upon abandoning the quest for a pro career and beginning to nurture the hoop dreams of youngsters through his "Off-the-Bench" player development business did Whitlock begin to contemplate a return to school. Only then, as he put it, did he "see the light."

If he was going to be genuine in advising and mentoring youths about making the most of their abilities, Whitlock said he figured he needed to have a degree.

Former assistant coach Bob Nash's ascension to head coach provided the opening. Nash, who had returned to UH after a pro career, earning a degree in his 30s, offered Whitlock a staff video position.

Whitlock said he was "humbled" upon seeing so many old faces on campus and also inspired to see his education through. And to everyone who inquired, Whitlock steadfastly maintained, "I'm going to graduate. You'll see."

So when word got around this month that the rumors were true, that Whitlock was really being fitted for cap and gown, the cell phone buzzed and e-mail hummed.

"I've heard from so many people," Whitlock said. "I just heard from my best friend when we played at UH, Justice Sueing. We had always talked about the NBA; never about graduating. He's in Arizona now and when he heard (about graduation), he told me, 'Wow!' "

Not for the first time in his UH days has Whitlock inspired that kind of exclamation. This time it just is a little more remarkable.