The sight of UCLA guard Skyy Clark pointing to the bloody stump of his missing front tooth, the collateral damage from a stray elbow while fighting for a loose ball, was one of the unforgettable images from Friday’s first-round games.
The real drama was yet to come Friday night. When UCLA plays Connecticut on Sunday, Clark’s mouth will be re-equipped with a full set of teeth thanks to a midnight trip to a suburban Philadelphia dentist for a late-night root canal and temporary crown.
“He shot me up with anesthesia,” Clark said Saturday. “He had to take the nerve out, take the root out, shave my tooth down to a nub, put in a new one, and it was like new.”
The dentist handling the late-night emergency call was Dr. Jeffrey Goldfine, who practices in Bala Cynwyd, just across the city line from Philadelphia, and who has a reputation for working with injured athletes. He said he gets one of these emergency calls every few months, and when UCLA needed a dentist, the St. Joseph’s trainer referred him. He got the text and got to work.
“They were about 20 minutes out,” Goldfine told Hoops HQ on Saturday. “It was quick. I live about five minutes away, so I popped over to the office. They had sent over a couple photos, so I saw what I was getting myself into. It was definitely fractured a bit further up even than they showed on TV. We did some further imaging and stabilized him to get him back in order.
“He’s still going to need some further treatment, but we patched him up with a temporary crown and he’s good to chew, good to smile, good to play ball.”
The concern was that if UCLA wins Sunday, the Bruins would be going straight to Washington, D.C., for the East Regional, so it could be more than a week before Clark sees the team dentist in Los Angeles. But Goldfine said Clark should be fine until then and that he spoke with the UCLA dentist on Saturday to brief him on the situation.
Goldfine also fit Clark for a mouth guard, which Clark said Saturday he definitely would wear against the Huskies.
With a few minutes remaining in UCLA’s 75-71 win over UCF, at about 9:30 p.m. local time, Clark was wrestling with Knights guard Themus Fulks for a loose ball when Fulks’ right elbow inadvertently caught Clark in the mouth and sent the bottom half of his top right incisor flying into the air. While Clark pointed at the bloody gap in his mouth, teammate Jake Seidler left the bench to trot out onto the floor and retrieve the fragment, although Clark said it was beyond saving.
“I felt it instantly,” Clark said. “I kind of put my tongue where my tooth was and I felt nothing there, and I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s gone.’”
After the game, his teammates made fun of Clark’s lisp, calling him Mike Tyson, while at the same time acknowledging the toughness of the senior transfer from Louisville.
“At the end of the day, he’s a dog,” UCLA’s Trent Perry said. “He’ll do everything for us to win.”
“He’s still going to need some further treatment, but we patched him up with a temporary crown and he’s good to chew, good to smile, good to play ball.”
-Dr. Jeffrey Goldfine
“Thanks, bro,” Clark said.
“Of course, man,” Perry said.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin, meanwhile, reveled in the carnage.
“He looked so good in the locker room. Looks like a boxer,” Cronin said. “Keep trying to talk to these guys about my old days. He just looked tough. Looks tough in the locker room, smiling, and there’s blood.”
But Cronin also acknowledged UCLA had some work to do late Saturday night to get Clark fixed up. Those were the coach’s two postgame priorities: a dentist for Clark and a cheesesteak for himself.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with Skyy,” Cronin said. “We need the dental stuff. What is it? An oral surgeon. We need a late-night oral surgeon. I’m going with Joe’s steak and sodas.”
Turns out, UCLA found one about as easily as Cronin got his late-night eats. And Goldfine said he was happy to contribute his Friday night free time to the cause.
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“When you’re on such a big stage and you’re a young guy, that’s the last thing you want to preoccupy his mind with,” Goldfine said. “I saw him on TV, smiling even with that injury. I just wanted him to get back to that place where he’s comfortable to hoop like normal.”
Mission accomplished, Clark said.
“I’m all good now, so shout out Dr. Goldfine,” Clark said. “He got me right. Took me in at like 12 o’clock at night. Thank you to him.”
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