Joey Whalen of the Slam Magazine profiles what will likely be the core of the latest edition of Ben Ball warriors:

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."

You can read rest of the piece here.

I have no idea whether we will win back the Pac-10 championship this season. However, I can tell you that I am looking forward to this edition of the Ben Ball season with the same level of anticipation I had weeks before the core of AA/JF/JS too the court at Pauley.

I will always miss DC, JS, PAA, RW, AA and JF the guys who brought back the glory in Westwood. At the same time I think it is going to be just as much fun watching these guys mature and develop into seasoned Ben Ball warriors under one of the best coaches in all of basketball.

GO BRUINS.