• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

  BRIDGET O'BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Bruin starters celebrate a lead early in the second half of their eventual 82-73 loss to Missouri in the NCAA Tournament's round of 16. UCLA finished its tumultuous season with a 21-12 record.

By Dylan Hernandez

Daily Bruin Staff

To the untrained eye, the UCLA men’s basketball team finished its season appearing to be the same squad it was at the beginning: the gold standard of inconsistency, the frustrating product of poor coaching.

After tearing through their half of the West Regional bracket in Pittsburgh, the Bruins were chopped down by Missouri, a team that was, put simply, superior to them.

Players immediately deemed the season a disappointment, even though UCLA finished the season 21-12 and reached the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in six years.

“You come to UCLA to win the Pac-10 and the national championship,” team captain and senior guard Rico Hines said. “I never got a chance to accomplish that.”

Calls to fire head coach Steve Lavin soon began to fill the talk show airwaves again.

Fans seemed more interested in discussing the prospects of next year than the accomplishment of this season’s squad, for they felt nothing had been accomplished between November and March.

Another Sweet 16 but no Final Four or national championship.

Yet, regardless of what was said – by the players or fans – the Bruins made progress throughout this season. They may not have put up better results at the end of the year, but it is clear that UCLA was a better team in March than it was at November’s Maui Invitational. They may not want to admit it, but they may have even overachieved.

Forget about the preseason hype; the Bruins, undoubtedly, were overrated.

Even at the midway point of the conference season, the team was one with countless problems.

The Bruins were too slow to play man and too undisciplined to play zone.

They lacked a point guard who could take care of the ball and distribute it properly.

Opposing teams were able to collapse on their leading scorer, forward Jason Kapono, and not have to pay the price.

Senior center Dan Gadzuric couldn’t keep himself out of foul trouble.

Given its multitude of faults, it is rather impressive that UCLA was able to regroup during the final stretch of the regular season and eventually defeat Cincinnati, the West region’s No. 1 seed, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Some may argue that the squad never regrouped, that it continued to play poorly toward the end of the year.

Not so.

The Bruins didn’t suddenly learn how to rotate within their defense zone come NCAA Tournament time. They didn’t suddenly learn to compensate for their lack of foot speed. Cedric Bozeman and Ryan Walcott didn’t suddenly become solid point guards. Dan Gadzuric didn’t suddenly learn to avoid fouling.

These developments took place over the last month of the season.

The Bruins didn’t become the perfect team, but they improved enough to take out Ole Miss and Cincinnati come tournament time.

Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric of lazy sportswriters.

The Bruins weren’t any more “inspired” than their opponents in the NCAA Tournament. It makes for easy-to-read print, but the perception that they won games simply because they started playing harder is ridiculous.

They won because they had become a better team. They won games by aligning their Xs and Os correctly, by executing more efficiently.

True, UCLA had heart, but in March, so does everyone else.

The Bruins had been playing hard all season. The squad, after all, had looked “inspired” at certain points earlier this season, such as when it beat Kansas and Stanford. But after each of their big wins, UCLA dropped to the ground with loud thuds.

Did they lose their heart?

No.

Hines was still diving for loose balls and Gadzuric was still huffing and puffing down the court.

The Bruins just weren’t that good.

The wins they earned were results of favorable matchups.

And Lavin, for all his faults, should be given some credit making more matchups favor his team.