UCLA Basketball: Head coach Steve Alford is out of excuses

With the UCLA basketball team bringing in a loaded freshman class, giving the Bruins their deepest team in the Steve Alford era, the head coach no longer has excuses for not winning a Pac-12 Championship.

Last week, the UCLA basketball team received two bits of good news. On Monday, the team announced that 4-star PF Shareef O’Neal was finally made eligible, has joined the team and will play for the Bruins during the 2018-19 season.

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The next day, it was announced that PF Cody Riley and C/PF Jaeln Hill were officially reinstated with the team after a season-long suspension. With that in mind, the Bruins are now packed to the gills with scholarship players.

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This coming season, the Bruins will be at their 13 scholarship limit. Not only will UCLA be deep, but they will also be talented.

UCLA has six freshmen coming in, O’Neal, C Moses Brown, PG Tyger Campbell, SG Jules Bernard, SG David Singleton III and C Kenny Nwuba.

They will add to the five returning Bruins, Riley, Hill, PG Jaylen Hands, SG Prince Ali, SF Kris Wilkes, SF Chris Smith and PF Alex Olesinski.

Though the only thing one can say that this team is missing is veteran leadership.

There are no seniors on the team. Ali and Olesinki are the old guys on the Bruins as they come into the season as redshirt juniors. Though there could be the excuse that the Bruins lack upperclassmen direction, there really is no excuse for Alford anymore.

In his five years in Westwood, Alford has only won a Pac-12 Tournament Championship (his first season) and the majority of the players were Ben Howland’s. Since then, in the regular season, UCLA has finished 2nd, 4th, 10th, 3rd and 3rd with a record of 117-57  and no Pac-12 regular season title in those five years. They have also been to three NCAA Tournaments, capping out at the Sweet Sixteen each time.

This last year, they made it to First Four, but since it was a play-in game, it can be argued that they did not make it “in” to the Big Dance.

It is time for the excuses to stop. It is time for some hardware to come to Westwood. It’s time for UCLA to get back on top!

With the roster Alford has built (he does deserve credit for this) and the low expectations for many Pac-12 teams, UCLA should win the regular season Pac-12 Championship.

As pointed out by Michael Hanna and Natha Eberhardt in the latest episode of the UCLA B Team podcast, Oregon should be the only contender for the title and they are an injury away from blowing all of that away. UCLA, though young, is deep at all five positions.

UCLA Basketball Potential Depth Chart

• PG: Jaylen Hands (So.), Tyger Campbell (Fr.)
• SG: Jules Bernard (Fr.), David Singleton III (Fr.), Prince Ali (R-Jr.)
• SF: Kris Wilkes (So.), Chris Smith (So.)
• PF: Cody Riley (R-Fr.), Shareef O’Neal (Fr.), Alex Olesinki (R-Jr.)
• C: Jalen Hill (R-Fr.), Moses Brown (Fr.), Kenny Nwuba (Fr.)

With the skill of all 13 players, Alford could do with an injury or two (fingers crossed that doesn’t happen)  and still have the most talented roster in the Pac-12. He also has the ability to move players around and play both big and small ball. Alford can matchup with any team that he faces and put up a fight, fight, fight, especially in conference.

With that being said, there are no more excuses. Alford needs to take advantage of this opportunity. If he doesn’t, it could be his job.