UCLA Bruins on SLAM

October 12, 2009 3:01 pm
Young Guns
UCLA may lack experience, but they have loads of talent
by Joey Whelan, SLAM online

On June 28th J’Mison Morgan received the news he had been waiting for. After missing six weeks of the off-season due to arthroscopic surgery to remove torn cartilage from his right knee, the rising sophomore was cleared by doctors to begin running again. Having arrived on campus the previous summer as a consensus top five center in his class, but quickly deemed out of shape, the clean bill of health was music to Morgan’s ears.

Waiting for him on the court upon his return were fellow sophomores Drew Gordon, Jerime Anderson and Malcolm Lee - all elite recruits in 2008 and all quickly forgotten like Morgan.

It’s amazing sometimes how prevalent short term memory loss is amongst sports fans. In this day and age of the “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” mentality, is it any wonder that UCLA would be expected to drop from their perch atop the Pac-10 after graduating Darren Collison, Alfred Aboya and Josh Shipp and watching Jrue Holiday depart for the NBA after one season?

Is it surprising that the other four members of last year’s number one recruiting class would be overlooked after biding their time on the bench at Pauley Pavilion behind a battle tested lineup of veterans?

With a roster that will feature five freshman, four sophomores and just three seniors, can you find fault with experts for projecting Washington or Cal to finish ahead of a team that has gone to three Final Fours in the last four years? Maybe not - but don’t tell the Bruins that.

“It’s tough to agree with it, it’s tough to disagree with it,” says sophomore power forward Drew Gordon of the early predictions. “We don’t have the set program that we as freshmen walked into. We had a lot of upperclassmen last year and they told us what to do. They had been through the program, knew how Coach Howland worked and we were able to adapt very quickly because we had those individuals telling us what was right and wrong. This year we’re still going to be getting a feel for Coach, we’re going to be learning as the freshmen are learning too.”

“At the same time, we have a good team, we have good chemistry, and we all know each other, so we’re going to mesh together. It all depends how you want to look at it, glass half full or glass half empty.”

With a roster that features only two players who averaged more than 15 minutes per game last season, most are thinking glass half empty. Given Ben Howland’s track record of success since joining the program though, that might not be the wisest approach.(Keep reading at SLAM online).