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UCLA Basketball and the Oscillating Hot Seat

By Mike Regalado

Pauley PavilionPhoto Credit: Jake Merrifield
Pauley PavilionPhoto Credit: Jake Merrifield /
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With such a coveted spot, the UCLA Basketball head coaching position often heats up when expectations are not met… deservedly.

UCLA Basketball fans (well, UCLA sports fans in general) are given a bad rap for their perceived high expectations. And why not? With UCLA being the school with the most NCAA Championships and the most Men’s Basketball championships, one needs to keep up appearances.

RELATED: UCLA Basketball and the Consistency of Being Inconsistent

Though this may have an elitist tone to some, it is actually a sense of pride in UCLA’s accomplishments. All great programs promote themselves and try to meet the expectations of the past. But not meeting those expectations does not necessarily put certain coaches on the “hot seat”, especially at UCLA.

What am I talking about, UCLA Basketball of course! 11 National Championships. John R. Wooden. Pauley Pavilion. All of this and more is part of the greatest college basketball program in history. Is it too much to ask that they sustain their relevancy each year?

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Not at all, but with the last three coaches, including current Head Coach Steve Alford, UCLA has not been consistently relevant and any increase in the temperature of their “seat” has been their own doing.

To explain, let us start with Steve Lavin. He took over after National Championship winning coach Jim Harrick was dismissed in 1996. So with a new regime in, expectations were high after the Bruins raised their 11th banner in 1995.

Lavin unfortunately did not meet those expectations. He was fairly successful in the regular season which was highlighted by a five Sweet 16 appearances in the post-season, but Lavin’s teams never met the expectations of his predecessor. Lavin’s seat got hot in his sixth year after three straight trips to the Sweet 16. It might have been too much to ask of Lavin for a National Championship, but at UCLA, that is the goal.

Though he was quite successful in his first six seasons, averaging 22.2 wins, his firing was inevitable after his seventh when the Bruins finished 10-19, 6-12 with no NCAA Tournament invite. Lavin was relieved of his duties after the 2002-03 season .

Mar 22, 2013; Austin, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Ben Howland during the first half of the game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament at the Frank Erwin Center. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 22, 2013; Austin, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Ben Howland during the first half of the game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament at the Frank Erwin Center. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports /

Enter Ben Howland in 2003. He completely turned around the program and went to three straight Final Fours starting in his third year. The four years after the Final Fours, Howland tried but failed to recapture that magic.

Things started to get hot in the 2011-12 season after he brought in an uninspired recruiting class with Norman Powell being its lone bright spot. That was also the Reeves Nelson year of shame. Add in a discrediting Sports Illustrated expose along with stories of bad recruitng practices topped with a second 5th place conference finish in three years left Howland in an awkward position with his dream job.

Though he brought in a top recruitng class for the 2012-13 season, got a regular season Pac-12 Championship, made it to the Pac-12 Tournament Championship Game (but then lost by 20 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament), it was not good enough for UCLA as his seat was already boiling. He was fired shortly after.

Enter Steve Alford. Not a popular hire, but he kept things consistent. The Bruins went 28-9 in his first year with a Sweet 16 appearance. He repeated that tourney feat in 2015, though many say the Bruins should have not been in the NCAA Tournament in the first place, especially after a subpar 20-13 regular season.

Jan 30, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Steve Alford in the first half of the game against the Washington State Cougars at Pauley Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 30, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Steve Alford in the first half of the game against the Washington State Cougars at Pauley Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /

This year it is worse. Though the season is not over, UCLA is already 15-12, 6-8 and is in 9th place in the Pac-12 with four games to go. Needless to say, the UCLA Basketball seat is hot again. Now am I saying Alford will get fired? No, but if he does not figure things out and start winning consistently, Alford will definitely go the way of Lavin and Howland, buyout or not.

Sure, it may be that expectations are high by UCLA Basketball standards, leading to terminations, but when the program is cycling in and out of relevancy, you are going to get fans, boosters and even administrators that feel the need for change.

To add, the termination of these coaches was not because they did not win a championship, it is because they reached substandard levels that any school would not tolerate. UCLA does and should hold their historically elite program to a higher standard and if coaches cannot match this, then they need to be replaced.

Next: The UCLA Basketball All-Time Team

Can you imagine if Duke, North Carolina and Kansas (to name a few) had inconsistent stretches in their history as bad as those UCLA Basketball had to endure in the last 21 years? I am sure that type of play would not be tolerated with one coach, let alone three. For the sake of Bruins everywhere, let us hope that changes very soon.