Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Many teams lost 1 player to the NBA last year, many lost 2 (Stanford and Memphis come to mind), but as far as I can tell, only UCLA and Kansas lost more than 2. But all 3 of UCLA's NBA rookies have established themselves in the league, which is remarkable. BAsketball Prospectus seemed to be the first to notice how well our Bruins are doing in the transition to professional basketball, and that continued with BP naming Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook to its All-Rookie first team and Luc Richard Mbaha a Moute to the All-Rookie second team. The same article put Love 2nd in the rookie of the year balloting (behind Brook Lopez). I am not sure I agree with that lofty position for Love because of his relative difficulty scoring, but Love certainly was a beast on the glass,

We all knew that Luc was an excellent defender. I used to rewind and replay action from games when he would make a play that made my jaw drop. The dive-steal at the end of the Gonzaga game (which is still on my tivo) and plays against LSU and Oregon (home 2007) where he covered 15 feet in two steps to steal a pass and block a shot, respectively, are in the category of plays I had to see again and again to believe that they actually happened. We saw on this year's Bruins team the difference between having an otherworldly defender at the 4 and an ordinary defender at the 4.

Still, I am surprised that Luc took no time to establish himself as one of the top defensive power forwards in the NBA. Usually, getting noticed for defense takes several years. But Luc is receiving all kinds of recognition for his defense. At Basketball Prospectus, he received honorable mention on the all defensive team at the power forward position. BP noted the enormity of his accomplishment:

Rare is the rookie who can step into the NBA and become an elite defender right away. Mbah a Moute has been just that at both forward positions for the Bucks, helping Scott Skiles turn the Bucks from one of the league's worst defenses into an average one overnight.

John Hollinger of ESPN noticed as well, naming Luc to his 3rd team all-defense at power forward:

It's rare for a rookie to crack this list, much less move into the upper tier of the league's frontcourt defenders, but Mbah a Moute was that good. The 6-9 forward from UCLA guarded 2s, 3s and 4s, and with his quickness, long arms and surprisingly developed knowledge, he proved adept no matter the assignment.

SI.com also ranked Love and Westbrook in their top 5 rookies of the season.

What does this mean? First, congratulations to all three Bruins to their success in the NBA. Second, when the NCAA season started, I don't think anybody fully contemplated at the time just how significant the loss of these 3 players would be to the 2008-09 Bruin team. Despite what Collison, Aboya and Shipp meant to the team, only Collison is an NBA player, and it is doubtful (to me at least) that he will have the kind of impact that any of the 3 2009 NBA rookies.

In 2008, we were all disappointed that we did not win a national championship. Looking at the 3 players from that team who succeeded in the NBA this year, I understand the disappointment. However, that 2008 team lacked an important quality that ultimately led to its downfall: depth. Beyond the 3 who left last year and Collison, the 2008 Bruins had no future pros. With Shipp struggling mightily at the 3 and no backups at the point guard or two wing positions, we really were playing with 4 excellent collegiate players. We had solid backups at the 4 and 5 spots, but Luc and Love were so good that the drop off to the bench in those spots was severe.

Why did we lack depth and can it be remedied? If we go back to 2003, we may have the answer why. Howland arrived in Westwood when UCLA was at an all-time low in recruiting circles. He immediately brought in some guys, but it takes time to build a depth of talent. Many local guys will commit based on faith that success will come (JF, AA, JS, LMR, thank you), others, namely nationally prominent recruits, want to see the success before they sign. The 2005 class (Collison's), which was signed before Howland had a winning season at UCLA, was excellent, but it did not have any recruits that were getting offers from what were then the national powers. The 2006 class, signed before Howland had an NCAA tourney win at UCLA (Keefe, Westbrook and Dragovic) included one player who could have gone elsewhere but signed on faith (Keefe), one foreigner who wasn't highly recruited, and one rising star who signed after the season we went to the NCAA finals.

Love was the first senior to commit to UCLA after it had national recognition, the first to sign with UCLA over a national power (UNC), and he was the recruit who stamped "national player" on UCLA hoops recruiting. We probably arrived too late to the scene to get Harden (whose close friend Glasser was already at ASU), but we had arrived.

Since Love's signing, we have brought in 10 top-100 players (according to scout.com) in 2 years (5 each season). In the 4 years ending with Love's signing, we brought in 10 (out of 14 total recruits), and no more than 3 in any season (AA, JF, LMR, DC, Ryan Wright, Roll, Keefe, RW, KL, Stanback). Prior to Love's signing, we signed fewer players (3.5 per season) and fewer top 100 players (2.5 per season).

It is clear from the above data that being a top-100 recruit is not everything (Luc was not in the top 100, Stanback and Wright were). However, I think it's fair to say that top-100 recruits have better odds than those who are not. Now that UCLA is locked a loaded in recruiting circles, I think it's safe to expect that no one will turn down UCLA because it lacks national cache or fails to produce pros. Academic and fit requirements will be challenging for Howland, but with the national presence, he should continue to find top players willing to come to UCLA.

With the last two classes, UCLA appears poised to counter the lack of depth of the 2008 team, which was only magnified when Farmar and Afflalo, two of the 10 top-100 recruits who would have been eligible on the 2008 team, left early for the NBA and Mike Roll, a 3rd top 100 recruit, was lost for the season due to his plantar tendon injury.

I am not certain whether the frosh-soph talent on next year's team will develop quickly enough for us to win a Pac-10 title next year, but I'm looking forward to watching it unfold and I have a lot of optimism about the next several seasons.