UCLA Basketball: Steve Alford's discrepancy in wins and the NBA Draft

1 of 3

TUCSON, AZ – FEBRUARY 25: Head coach Steve Alford of the UCLA Bruins reacts during the first half of the college basketball game against the Arizona Wildcats at McKale Center on February 25, 2017 in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

Go Joe Bruin looks at UCLA basketball and the Pac-12 over the last five years, comparing conference records and players sent to the NBA Draft, and the results are similar to the comparison’s made by Jon Wilner and Pac-12 football.

If the title of this article sounds familiar, it should. I recently wrote an article of similar nature about the UCLA football team. The unfortunate part is that when examining UCLA basketball‘s place in the Pac-12, the results are just as underwhelming.

First off, let me start off by saying that this idea originated from Jon Wilner of the Mercury News’ Pac-12 Hotline. If you have not already, check out his article, One Measure of Pac-12 Coaching: Compare Conference Win Totals to the Number of NFL Draft Picks Produced.

In that piece, he compared conference records among Pac-12 football teams and their NFL Draft picks, and the results, especially when looking at UCLA’s production over the last six years shows severe underachievement on the part of former Bruin coach Jim Mora.

That got me to thinking about what the comparison between UCLA basketball’s conference records and the amount of players they have sent to the pros.

Using Wilner’s model, we will look at: (1) five-year conference win totals (Wilner used six, but we will stick to five to parallel Steve Alford’s tenure at UCLA), (2) conference win percentage, (3) five-year draft totals, (4) percentage of Pac-12 draft picks and (5) win total relative to draft picks.

Conference Wins by Year (2013-18)

Arizona: 14+16+12+16+15=73
Oregon: 10+16+14+13+9=63
Utah: 11+11+13+13+9=57
UCLA: 11+15+6+11+12=55
Stanford: 11+6+8+9+10=44
Colorado: 8+8+10+7+10=43
Cal: 2+10+12+7+10=41
Arizona State: 8+7+5+9+10=39
USC: 12+10+9+3+2=36
Washington: 10+2+9+5+9=35
Oregon State: 7+1+9+8+8=33
Washington State: 4+6+1+7+3=21

The top two are obvious, but third and fourth are a bit of a shock. Utah has two more victories than UCLA in five years. That 2015-16 season, where the Bruins went 15-17 overall, really gives their conference win total a hit. Now let’s look at the percentage of conference wins.

Conference Game Win Percentage (2013-18)

Arizona: 81.1%
Oregon: 70.0%
Utah: 63.3%
UCLA: 61.1%
Stanford: 48.9%
Colorado: 47.8%
Cal: 45.6%
Arizona State: 43.3%
USC: 40.0%
Washington: 38.9%
Oregon State: 36.7%
Washington State: 23.3%

Once again, Arizona, Oregon and Utah lead the Pac-12. UCLA comes in 4th with only a 61.1% conference win percentage. This is a big reason why they have not won a single regular season conference championship in Alford’s tenure. Sure they came close during the 2016-17 season, but not close enough.

Unfortunately, UCLA basketball fans, these numbers are even more depressing when you look at the number of players sent (and sending) to the NBA.

UCLA Basketball: Steve Alford’s discrepancy in wins and the NBA Draft

By Mike Regalado | May 2, 2018

Go Joe Bruin looks at UCLA basketball and the Pac-12 over the last five years, comparing conference records and players sent to the NBA Draft, and the results are similar to the comparison’s made by Jon Wilner and Pac-12 football.

Conference Wins by Year (2013-18)

Conference Game Win Percentage (2013-18)