The UCLA Basketball team quit dancing long ago. Should this be the new normal for a team that has a rich tradition of hanging national championship banners?
At the beginning of March, when the bracket frenzy was in full gear, many picked UCLA Basketball to win it all. Instead, Gonzaga and North Carolina will face off in the NCAA Title game tonight.
The Bruins did not even make it past the Sweet Sixteen. Ironically, after a disappointing 15-17 season last year, making it back to the tourney seems enough for some. In fact, my colleague Mike Regalado wrote a piece calling for expectations for the UCLA Basketball team to be more aligned with reality.
This season was not a success. This is not because expectations for UCLA Basketball are conflated, but rather, because the Bruins objectively had the talent to make it farther than a Sweet Sixteen run.
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UCLA Basketball has not gotten a national championship banner since 1995. Sure, that’s a fact, and it’s a strong indication that the Bruins have struggled to be what they once were. But history cannot and does not dictate the future.
Coach Steve Alford has taken the Bruins to three Sweet Sixteens in four years. Arguably, out of those three appearances, this year’s team had the best talent.
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Lonzo Ball, TJ Leaf, and Ike Anigbogu were the most explosive freshmen to play for Coach Alford (yet). Bryce Alford found his rhythm as the two guard. Thomas Welsh got bigger, Isaac Hamilton got polished, and Aaron Holiday became the perfect sixth man. Despite the caliber of this team, UCLA finished third in conference play and fell to Arizona in the Pac-12 tourney semifinal.
Being back in the NCAA tournament helped relieved the pain of another conference title-less season. After all, the Bruins had a chance to win on the national stage. And UCLA did win—against Kent State and Cincinnati. But when the Bruins faced Kentucky, a team they had beat earlier in the regular season, the season felt like a disappointment all over again.
And it wasn’t just about the fact that Coach Alford has yet to take UCLA Basketball to the Elite Eight. It was the fact the Bruins didn’t play well in that game. It was poor play that left a bitter taste for the fans. Had UCLA lost fighting, I would be writing a different article.
UCLA Basketball will be stacked once again next season. Holiday, Anigbogu, Welsh, and Prince Ali are all returning. Add two five-star recruits, Kris Wilkes and Jaylen Hands, plus a couple of other four- and three-star players, and you’ll have maybe an even stronger squad than this year’s.
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Next season the fans will expect that type of talent to do more than third in the conference and to climb a little farther than Sweet Sixteen. Is this the wrong approach? Not quite. Talent at UCLA shouldn’t get wasted. If that continues to happen, then we will be writing about UCLA being title-less for more than just a couple of decades.