Two of the four most storied college basketball programs saunter along similar paths back to greatness.As the seemingly endless fortnight leading up to the Super Bowl comes down to its waning hours, and the NFL season ultimately closes, many of us will soon wake up, realize it’s nearly mid-February, and recall that our sports attention should quickly turn to college basketball and the impending “madness” that March always brings.
As a huge college hoops fan, I have been keeping tabs on the games since mid-November, and today’s insight delves into the present and future state of two storied schools, Kansas and UCLA.
An erstwhile Los Angeles resident (I moved east this past summer) and former UCLA season ticket holder for two seasons, it has been pleasant sight to see the Bruins saga emerging from the Steve Lavin era and improving each day and each year under Ben Howland. Likewise is the story for my favorite college squad from Lawrence, Kansas. Simply the most intriguing nuance is that the progress of both programs mirror one another, just one season apart.
Whereas the Bruins finally had a successful season in 2004-2005 and made the NCAA tournament as one of the last at-large teams invited, KU should be in place to do the same in 2005-2006. The very precocious Jayhawks have had some excellent wins this year (Cal, Kentucky, at Colorado and at Iowa State), but have also been hit by inconsistency, a hallmark of a young team. This bears a striking comparison to last year’s, tri-frosh-led Jekyll-and-Hyde Bruin team.
UCLA now boasts a team at the top of the (albeit very mediocre) Pac-10, in the national top 15 week after week, and destined to be a three or four seed in the NCAA tournament, despite losing #3 scorer, Josh Shipp, for the season earlier this year.
As the Bruins key players are now a scattering of sophomores and freshmen, with a senior contributing here (Cedric Bozeman) and there (Ryan Hollins), Kansas regularly starts three freshmen and a sophomore, while checking in their lone seniors (Christian Moody and Jeff Hawkins) for seemingly shrinking intervals with each game. I look for Kansas to get one of the last at- large bids this year, bow out quickly (a la UCLA last March), and find themselves in UCLA’s current spot in 2007 whereupon KU will have the talent to be a top 20, sweet 16 team much as UCLA will be this year.
Next season, with a few fortuitous bounces of the ball, UCLA could feasibly be a final four contender; and in March of 2008, don’t be incredulous if you see “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” back in the final four. Last year’s team, boasting three NBA-destined seniors, really left a sour taste in the beaks of KU fans with their premature exodus in round one to upstart Bucknell.
Thankfully, for UCLA at least, therein is where the schools differ. The Bruins palate had not been whet under Steve Lavin for quite a few seasons. However, should the current Bruin sophomores stick around until 2008, as seniors, they and UCLA could be in line for the first national title in Westwood since 1995.