At any rate, for all those who missed Kareem and Bill, enjoy this year while you can.  I guarantee you this is something very special, and we may see other great teams in the future, but we may never see the likes of K. Love again.

As always, Go Bruins!!

To me, he's just a great player.  But it seems like the NBA pundits don't know exactly what to think of him.  From their perspective he's a tweener.  He's not big enough to be a true C/PF in the NBA and go up against guys like Yao, Duncan, Novitzki, Garnett... the list goes on.  Is he Wes Unseld, Bill Laimbeer, Charles Barkley?  What is he?

We'll see if that thinking persists.  Howland likes to help his players do his best, and guys seem to go very freely to the draft camps and workouts.  My guess is that Love will do the same, and he'll be very impressive.  And what he does as the season progresses and in the tournament, how he does and if UCLA can prosper, will be very important.

Put it this way--if UCLA doesn't make it to the final four, and Love is projected as a #15 choice, my guess is he'll definitely be back.  Anything better than that, great, but let's see both the team and KLove get there.  And let's stay in the moment and just enjoy his presence.

And I should say, as someone who saw pretty much every game Kareem and Walton played in Pauley, this is very different.  There are similarities, but Love is a very different player.  Yes, he has the intelligence and the passion, the cornerstones of industriousness and enthusiasm.  And he throws the Walton outlet, has a similar sense of where his teammates are on the court.  

The thing that's amazing, thinking about it, is how similar Kareem and Walton were.  There really aren't a lot of other players like them, and they really most resemble each other in an uncanny way.  Wilt and Patrick Ewing were different types, Shaq is different.  Other centers--Parish, Thurmond, Hakeem... nobody was as much like Kareem as Walton, and vice versa.

Two things stand out.  You notice how the Bruins find it hard to get the ball to Love against the zone?  Teams would try the same thing against Kareem and Walton, but it wouldn't come close to working.  Their height, wingspan, length, and ability to provide an outstretched target hand was just amazing.  When teams would overplay, Walton provided his own wrinkle--the reversal and lob over everyone from Greg Lee.  Kareem got lobs a few times in the flow of the game, but no one ever made it a routine option until Walton.  And it meant that you couldn't front him at all, not ever, so he would just get the ball right where he wanted to in the post, time after time.

And of course the other thing was defense and shot-blocking.  Again, if you didn't experience it, it's hard to explain what it's like.  There was just no routine, easy shot to be had anywhere near the basket.  Again, Kareem did it almost improvisationally, providing length and focus and sheer intimidation.  Walton took everything Kareem did and perfected it, seizing every opportunity with a special zeal.  It was being in Vienna and listening first to Mozart and then Beethoven.

Kevin Love is very good, and his skill level is truly extraordinary.  But he's still a freshman, and we shouldn't forget the Kareem and Walton didn't even play as freshmen.  They were much more dominant players, and they both played for 3 years as upper classmen.

The game is different now, and this is what we get, and we should enjoy every minute.  Walton got knocked off by David Thomson, Maravich was shut down like Chase Budinger in Pauley--and still scored over 40--, and we never saw LeBron or Kobe or Garnett or Dwight Howard play in the tournament, let alone as seniors.   The important thing is the program, the coach, and all the players.  

It may not be the same, but there's nothing like UCLA in college basketball, not in the past, and now, with the universal order restored, in the present.