Three years in a row, UCLA wasn’t the best

Sitting in a Westwood apartment as the Memphis Tigers put the finishing touches on a near-perfect game against the UCLA Bruins in the national semifinal on Saturday afternoon, I was surrounded by a group of UCLA students who wore familiar looks of resignation their faces.

For the third straight year, the UCLA basketball team made an impressive run to the Final Four. For the third straight year, the Bruins’ championship run was denied when they were unequivocally dismantled by an athletically superior ball club. Granted, this year’s UCLA team was a national powerhouse for most of the season and forced its way through the NCAA Tournament with an almost boring efficiency, whereas the previous Bruin teams needed a bit of good fortune and late-season heroics to make it to the Final Four.

But there is an eerie continuity to how each of the last three seasons have finished, which is not so much with a whimper or a bang but a shrug. For the third straight year, UCLA fans are disappointed to see the Bruins fall just short of hanging banner No. 12 yet resigned to the fact that the team went as far as it could have gone.

In 2006 and 2007, Ben Howland’s club ran into the eventual back-to-back champions Florida Gators ““ first in the championship game and then in a semifinal ““ only to be blown out of the water. Can anyone honestly say that Memphis’ 78-63 win over the Bruins on Saturday was any less convincing?

By the time I finished my Fatty Ganko sandwich from Socko’s, it was midway through the first half and it was very apparent that the Tigers were going to be able to dictate the style of the game.

Sure, it is accurate to say that Memphis coach John Calipari outclassed UCLA’s Ben Howland, at least for one game. Calipari built an offensive game plan around attacking UCLA’s Darren Collison, correctly recognizing that Russell Westbrook is by far the more athletic and stifling defender. Meanwhile, Howland did not make the necessary in-game adjustments. Rather than having Westbrook defend Memphis’ Derrick Rose and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute defend Chris Douglas-Roberts from the tipoff, he allowed Collison guard Rose for far too much of the game.

In fact, several pundits have suggested that Collison’s poor performance in Saturday’s game illustrates his limitations at the NBA level. These sports writers and talk show hosts are probably right in their assessment, but when Collison’s play is looked at in the context of the Memphis-UCLA game, there is a broader point to be made: Memphis has more future NBA playmakers on its roster, and it would have taken an extraordinary performance by several of the Bruin players to win that game.

Unfortunately, Westbrook is the only one who shined as brightly on the big stage as Rose and Douglas-Roberts. (And that is bittersweet news for anyone who wants to see Westbrook delay his ascent to the NBA and come back for another year.)

So, Collison played as poorly on Saturday as he has in any game all season. Kevin Love did not get the ball fed to him in the paint nearly enough times. Mbah a Moute took some ill-advised jump shots ““ big shocker there. And Josh Shipp’s shooting slump carried over to San Antonio.

But much of that can be attributed to the Tigers, an athletic dream team peaking at the perfect time. One would have to be a ferocious cynic or a serious homer to deny the simple fact that, with Kansas and Memphis, the national championship game will feature the two most physically gifted teams in the country.

For the third straight year, the Bruins must accept that, while they were good and even showed flashes of greatness, they were not the best.

There is something very cruel about athletic competition, in that one is easily cast aside and quickly forgotten as soon as one is revealed to be anything less than the very best. One cannot help but feel sorry for this group of UCLA players ““ Collison, Shipp, Mbah a Moute, et al ““ who will now be remembered for being very good, but not the best. That kind of bottom line must sting, especially at a basketball powerhouse like UCLA.

E-mail de Jong at [email protected].