Separated at the draft

By Chris Dufresne

March 28, 2008 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The campus book store might have closed on Stanford’s 7-foot Lopez twins had Brook’s baseline half-hook with 1.3 seconds left in overtime Saturday not rolled around the rim and kicked home at the Honda Center.

Stanford outlasted Marquette by a point, though, offering a real-life reprieve and the chance for the king-sized kids to remain kids until at least today.

That’s when third-seeded Stanford plays second-seeded Texas in a South Regional semifinal game in Houston.

This is the first time since 2001 that Stanford has made it to the second NCAA weekend, while Brook’s rim rattler marked the first time the program had won a tournament game on a last-second shot.

Exciting stuff, but has anyone checked the sand in the hourglass?

Will today be the last game the Lopez brothers ever play together?

Or, can Brook and Robin forestall the inevitable through next week’s Final Four in San Antonio?

Many have chronicled what a stellar and stand-up sibling partnership this has been since grade school, through Fresno, through Palo Alto, but not playing together, well, that’s a different matter.

“We haven’t talked about it,” Robin insisted.

The end of the beginning draws near for Brook and Robin, it seems, at least as a basketball tag team.

They came, they towered, they stood on the college stage longer than Kevin Durant, but it could have already been over if not for Brook’s baby hook from (almost) behind the backboard.

“That was a sweet shot,” mother Deborah, who charts her own statistics during games, said at the Honda Center.

She might soon be keeping separate books.

You split up this kind of act only when external forces demand it and the money is too tempting even for practitioners from Stanford, which has never lost one basketball sophomore to the pros, let alone two at once.

Gone, likely, are the days when Stanford can hold 7-foot twin centers together for four years, as was the case with Jarron and Jason Collins.

Former Stanford twins Mike and Bob Bryan, born two minutes apart, were able to carve out a marvelous career as doubles partners -- but their sport is tennis.

It doesn’t work that way in hoops.

The Collins brothers left Stanford in 2001 for the pros and have never been on the same team.

“We’ve always joked that one of us would try to go in the draft and the other would try to go free agent to the same team,” Brook Lopez said. “That was just a joke. We understand there’s a ridiculous chance that will happen. It’s like highly unlikely. I think we are prepared for it, whenever it comes, it’s down the road. We’re just trying to enjoy the college experience right now, playing together.”

The twins, obviously, have chemistry you can’t teach.

“We’ve just played with each other so long, there’s an on-court connection,” Brook said.

Robin doesn’t think he’ll be any less of a person or player when separated from Brook.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m obviously going to have to grow in some ways. I’m probably going to have to be better at creating my own shot.”

Kevin Love, UCLA’s fabulous freshman center, has compared the Lopez twins to the walking trees in “The Lord of the Rings.”

UCLA defeated Stanford three times this season, but the Bruins might not want to try for a fourth, which can only happen if the schools meet in the national semifinals.

Brook is considered the more polished walking tree, the more offense-minded and the most NBA-ready. He has been projected as a top-five NBA pick. Robin, though, improved his stock with an outstanding two-game Anaheim stint.

One expert observer at Anaheim said it would be a shock, assuming the Lopez brothers declare for the draft, if Robin did not also get picked in the first round. The Times’ NBA writer Mark Heisler, in his latest mock draft, has Brook at No. 3 and Robin at No. 22.

Brook entered the tournament averaging 19 points and 8.5 rebounds, yet it was Robin who covered his brother’s back through the first game and a half.

Brook made one basket in the first-round blowout win over Cornell and was one for seven from the field in the first half against Marquette before exploding for 28 after-intermission points.

Robin, averaging 10 points and 5.6 rebounds, in two tournament games has totaled 32 points, 13 rebounds, two assists and eight blocks in 61 minutes.

Brook, limited by foul trouble, had 34 points, four assists, six rebounds and two blocks in 43 minutes.

Although Brook scored only two points in eight minutes in the first half against Marquette, Robin held down the fort with 10 points and four rebounds in 19 minutes.

It was Robin’s free throw that sent the game into overtime (although he missed the front end), and Brook’s shot that sent Stanford to the next round.

The Lopez twins are a study in symmetry. Last summer, on a basketball trip to Italy, Robin marveled at Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “The Last Judgment,” at the Sistine Chapel.

“It’s truly amazing how everything connects,” Robin said. “Like there will be something way over here that starts making eye contact with something over there.”

Brook and Robin know their connection may soon end, so they’re going to stand together in the paint for as long as they can.

They are noted comic book buffs and devout worshipers of Walt Disney, whose theme park is not far from the Honda Center, where Brook’s baseline shot was sprinkled with Tinkerbell’s pixie dust.

“It is awfully coincidental,” Robin said.

Robin has even studied original versions of “Cinderella,” a story line that inspired Disney.

“That was his favorite film,” Robin said. “He felt it embodied him the most, sort of rags to riches.”

Brook and Robin, certainly, know the story.

Times staff writer Sam Farmer contributed to this story.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Tall tandem

Averages for brothers Brook and Robin Lopez:

*--* SEASON *--*

*--* Pts. Reb. Blks. Brook Lopez 19.0 8.5 2.1 Robin Lopez 10.3 5.7 2.4 *--*

*--* NCAA TOURNAMENT *--*