UCLA basketball may have missed out this season, but a redeeming moment will come
By Ryan Eshoff
March 15, 2012 12:42 a.m.
I was late to my first-ever college class, an astronomy lecture in Kinsey Pavilion that I’m surprised I’m not still looking for.
I was the second-to-last person there, meaning I took the first of the two stand-alone chair desk things in the back of the lecture hall.
The second went to Darren Collison, the then-starting point guard and face of the program.
It was the beginning of Collison’s senior year, the beginning of what everyone thought would be a standard sequel ““ you know, good but maybe not quite as good as the original ““ to the three straight Final Fours of 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Heck, my conversation with Collison ““ of course I spent the 90 minutes talking to him instead of listening to the professor ““ was centered around whether or not the Bruins could keep up with North Carolina, not whether or not this was the beginning of a four-year-and-maybe-more rut for the proud program (now that I think about it, I think that astronomy lecture was called Black Holes: The Art of Passing to Nikola Dragovic).
There’s a reason I’m going back to the beginning: This is my last column about UCLA basketball ever. I’ll be moving on after this year, hopefully to things bigger and better, but potentially things smaller and worse. God alone knows.
As exciting as my run with UCLA basketball started ““ picking the mind of one of the country’s best point guards when I should have been learning about escape velocity ““ it ended with a whimper.
The Bruins bowed out of the Pac-12 tournament, and did not even receive a bid to the National Invitation Tournament, the consolation tournament. Imagine not even getting invited to go to the movies with all the people that didn’t get asked to prom. That hurts.
My class arrived in Westwood in the wake of the early departures of Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute to the NBA draft. I believed in life after Love, but I could feel something inside me say, “I really don’t think you’re strong enough, noooo” (thanks Cher).
Turns out that sudden emigration set UCLA back in such a way that it still has yet to recover. Talk about escape velocity.
Since UCLA is (hopefully) being generous enough to grant me an English degree in the very near future, I can’t help but think about the life of the UCLA basketball program in any way other than a great saga.
The three Final Fours were the first triumphs of the good guys, inspired as they were by a new coach. But the enemy has their day in the sun, they do in all the great narratives. The good guys have to go through the trials. It happened to the people of Israel, it happened to Odysseus, it happened to the Rebel Alliance.
It’s happening now to the UCLA basketball program. As linked as this university is to its basketball ““ I’m going to write “John Wooden” here just because I feel obligated to put his name somewhere ““ I wouldn’t dream of wanting to write about anything else.
Many of the more memorable characters have persisted: The cantankerous coach Ben Howland, now mired in the arguably the most disappointing stretch of his career; the man-behind-the-scenes, Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, trying to revive his restaurant’s finest dish; the legendary spirit squad leader Danny King, beloved and recognized by so many, appreciated so for his unwavering enthusiasm and devotion.
There have been new faces, new heroics, new scandals, new memories, new stories to tell. I’ve been blessed more than I have the space to write to get to add my meaningless and pun-heavy words to the dynamic narrative of UCLA basketball.
One thing you learn when you’re a sucker for great stories is that triumph is cyclical. Yeah, we seniors just missed out on the Final Fours. Like me at my first lecture, we were just a tad late.
But being late and having to sit in the back isn’t the worst thing in the world; not when you can make the most of where you are and know that a new day is always coming.
If you’re reading this in a lecture you’re supposed to be paying attention to, email Eshoff at [email protected].
