If you have been living in a hole, the UCLA basketball team will have the national spotlight on them.
And, of course, you had to figure that the Bruins would be featured on ESPN’s popular program College GameDay as a result. It was just a matter of when, where, and against whom.
We have the answer. Our UCLA Bruins will play rival Arizona on March 2.
Arizona, if you haven’t kept up, is as much of a national title contender as we are. They boast the third-best recruiting class in 2012 according to ESPN, while UCLA has the top recruiting spot. As a result, the teams that were supposed to make a serious NCAA tournament run in 2011 will now be considered national title contenders in 2012.
Of course, both schools could flame out and the match-up on March 2 could be disastrous. Neither are strangers to that, with UCLA having the top recruiting class in 2008 which amounted to absolutely nothing during their careers and added to an awful four seasons of UCLA basketball. Meanwhile, in 2011, Arizona head honcho Sean Miller signed a top-10 recruiting class headlined by Josiah Turner. He flamed out pretty hard and Arizona failed to make the tournament just as UCLA did.
Things feel different, with an air of desperation coming out of Westwood. Shabazz Muhammad also seems like a legitimate prospect with no attitude issues while the rest of the class should be held together by an improved (we hope) attitude from Ben Howland after being embarrassed in Sports Illustrated.
We’re personally hoping Arizona gets its stuff together too, so the Pac-12 won’t be such a joke for yet another year.
Here’s to hoping that we give ESPN the TV that they hoped for.
GO BRUINS!!!