It hasn’t been long since UCLA was a top college basketball program. If you want to use a dumb metric of success, the Bruins made three Final Fours in a row between 2006 and 2008. If you want to use a reasonable metric of success, the Bruins were a top two seed three years in a row between 2006 and 2008. If you want to just go by how good the teams actually were, the Bruins were a top-twelve team four years in a row between 2005-06 and 2008-09 on KenPom.
Yes, UCLA has had success, national success, within recent memory. And even under Steve Alford, they commanded top-four seeds twice in a four-year stretch and made the Sweet Sixteen three times. But for whatever reason—the lack of a championship, the mind-blowing failures at times under Alford, the stark rebuilding seasons Ben Howland sometimes underwent, the disastrous coaching search that may have turned out stunningly well in the end—it doesn’t feel like UCLA’s been one of the top programs of the 21st century. And to be fair, they haven’t been, really. Their average finish in KenPom has been 50th over these last 22 years. That’s behind the cut line almost every season.
That could be changing. Joe Lunardi’s projected bracket over at ESPN has the Bruins grabbing a 1-seed. Bart Torvik’s preseason rankings currently have UCLA 2nd overall. They return the entirety of their Final Four rotation from this past year. They add top-ten recruit Peyton Watson to the mix. They’re heavy Pac-12 favorites, and with November clashes lined up with Villanova (home) and Gonzaga (in Las Vegas), they could carry the top overall ranking out of the season’s first month.
Plenty, of course, can go wrong. It’s worth remembering how close UCLA was to missing this past tournament altogether, taking one of the four last at-large spots after closing their argument with four straight losses (three as underdogs, one not). It’s worth remembering that UCLA’s best regular-season win last season was just a home game against Colorado on January 2nd, and that their NCAA Tournament path began with Michigan State, who didn’t deserve to be in the field, then went through BYU and Abilene Christian, about as good of a first-two-round draw as a team could request. Even against Alabama and Michigan, the games could have gone either way. UCLA was good, but they weren’t obviously good until they played Gonzaga, who went on to lay a great big egg two nights later.
Still, it’s hard to argue with that roster, and at the very least, UCLA will be playing meaningful early-season basketball, with a great chance to be making it meaningful late in the year as well. Mick Cronin, by all appearances, has a good thing going.
