UCLA: Better things to come?

SHELBURNE: Amidst lowered expectations,UCLA finding room to breathe, rebuild
By Ramona Shelburne, Columnist
The Los Angeles Daily News
Updated: 12/16/2009 10:56:06 PM PST


They all saw it coming but tried to look away.

Not to hide from it or deny it, just to hope fate or fortune might look favorably on the UCLA basketball team, and that it might not be so bad after all.

Which could've happened.

But didn't happen.

Ben Howland sat at a podium Tuesday night inside Pauley Pavilion after UCLA ended a five-game losing streak by beating New Mexico State to improve to 3-6 on the season and managed to crack a few jokes.

Yes, that Ben Howland.

Usually he's seen scowling and looking stern on the UCLA sideline.

Howland, without prompting, without even a good set-up from a reporter, deadpanned, "I thought Malcolm Lee had a good all-around game, he had eight rebounds, shot the ball well. No, he didn't call bank on the one 3-pointer, but we'll take it."

If you've ever been to a Howland press conference before, you know how rare that unprompted bit of humor was.

But this isn't your average season for UCLA.

After a bevy of underclassmen defections to the NBA, UCLA's cupboard has finally run a little bare.

All of which could have been seen in advance, and all of which was made a whole lot worse by a rash of early-season injuries, the unexpected transfer of center Drew Gordon and the unexpected arrest of senior guard Nikola Dragovic.

Add in a tough schedule with a game against the No. 1 team in the country, a lack of preseason practice time and some unbearably bad shooting, and you've got the current state of UCLA basketball.

The good news is not much of this was entirely unexpected.

Expectations had been significantly lowered the second Jrue Holliday declared for the NBA draft last spring.

Not as low as they are right now, but still low.

Which in time, could turn out to be the best thing that could happen to this group of Bruins.

Progress this year doesn't have to be measured in Pacific-10 Conference titles and NCAA appearances. Heck, it doesn't even have to be measured in UCLA's final win total.

It'll be measured in player development, in effort, in little things such as the number of charges freshman forward Reeves Nelson takes during a game.

Because it happens so rarely in Westwood, it's taken us a long time to admit what this year really is for UCLA: A rebuilding year.

While losing to Cal State Fullerton at home was tough and losing five straight games was even tougher, the resounding positive to come from it all is the now resoundingly clear fact that UCLA is going to need a little time to regroup after Howland led them to three consecutive Final Fours and the second-round of last season's NCAA Tournament.

"It's been real hard. I didn't expect this at all when I came here," freshman Tyler Honeycutt said. "I knew we had a tough schedule, but I thought it'd be competitive, close games.

"It's kind of helped us actually, kind of set us in our place. Let us know we're not all that and still have room to improve."

The word for it is, "humbled."

And somehow, in that humility, Howland has found a sense of humor and patience.

"You have to be patient, especially with young kids who are learning everything for the first time," Howland said. "This is early in the season. Everybody acts like we're writing things off here. It's still very early."

That's not to say this group will turn into a Final Four team by the end of the season. It's not even to suggest that an NCAA Tournament bid is back on the table.

Just to say that UCLA has room to grow, and finally, some room to breathe after the weight of past expectations has been lifted off of them.

With his scrappy style, Nelson can be the second-coming of Luc Richard Mbah a Moute.

Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson can lead the team in scoring.

Honeycutt has the potential to be one of the best slashers in the Pac-10.

But there's about 300 hours of film study, practice and hard knocks to go through before we can remove the word "can" from any of those sentences.

"We watch a lot of film," Lee said. "We watched all of that film of us against Mississippi State. Every little thing that we did wrong. Then we worked on it in practice (Monday)."

It's not glamorous. It's not what's been happening around UCLA since Howland took over. But it also does happen.

At programs all over the country. At Florida, after the Gators won back-to-back national titles a few years ago. At Georgetown, at Duke and all sorts of great programs in between.

And it's best to develop a good sense of humor while you're going through it.