Bumped. GO BRUINS.-N

I was very sad on Saturday, once it became fairly certain that we would not make that magical run to reel in the Tigers, and our likely one and only season with Love (unlike the only two centers UCLA has ever had who are better than him) would not produce a championship.

Depending on who returns for us and other teams, our 2008-09 squad could be anything from a presumptive national championship favorite to a team picked to finish roughly 3rd in the Pac-10 (behind ASU and USC). That's a wide range, so it's clearly too early to ponder what lies ahead in the next year. No, this is a time for reflection. And when you reflect on where this program is today, you have to say something like "Thank God for Ben Howland." Or if that's not secular enough: "We are so lucky to have Ben Howland." You would follow that by saying, "If only we had a little more talent." Here's my explanation.

We have gotten to 3-straight final 4s because Ben Howland (1) assembled talent (some raw, some not so raw, some rotting leftovers from CBH's predecessor), (2) developed that talent, (3) increased the toughness of each player (perhaps other than Mike Fey--there is such a thing as a lost cause), (4) got the players to buy in to his system of defense before everything else, (5) came up with game plans that helped them succeed, and (6) let the players make plays to win games.

He did other things too. This is not an exhaustive list. But it gives you an idea of what Howland has added to the program. On top of that, he's a great ambassador for the university, he exudes the passion of a fan, he's detail-oriented (understatement alert), and his mind is like a steel trap.

It's a pretty remarkable achievement, especially considering that his predecessor sucked the life out of the team and its fans, leaving Howland holding a grab bag of a few talented misfits with apparent poor work ethic and an army of guys that shouldn't have been awarded scholies even at schools like Pepperdine. The cupboard was bare. He had one signee for his first year (Ariza), who was a good player but really only at UCLA for an NBA audition. He built this program from the ground up with nothing but hard work and the premise that once-storied UCLA could rise from the ashes to be a national player once again. Even though at the time, Arizona, Stanford and even perhaps USC, Cal, Oregon and Washington had more cache.

Let's take a moment to pause and say "Wow." Wow. Wow. Three Final 4s and a program that is in the top 5 in national recognition, perhaps even top 3, with only Duke and UNC getting more national TV appearances over the past 2 years than the Bruins. Unbelievable.

We beat teams with more talent to get to the final 4: Memphis and Kansas, perhaps even Gonzaga maybe even LSU (though I doubt it) had more talent. We lost in the final 4 to teams with more talent.

Now, the second part of this diary--each Final 4 has revealed that we were not the most talented team in the country. (How can you say that when we have Love etc.?) That's right. We do not have the most talent. And it's really not very close. We have high-quality talent to a point but not to the depth and breadth that Kansas and Memphis and even UNC have talent.

For example, Kansas doesn't have Kevin Love, but it does have Darrell Arthur (a lottery pick) and its 4th post option (Aldrich) was totally dominant for a 7-minute stretch against UNC. You could argue that Kansas has 4 post players that are better than our 2nd best post (Luc). At the very least, Kansas has one guy clearly better than Luc, and 3 guys who are in the same ballpark and very big. Our bigs beyond Love do not have the capacity to take over games like Aldrich did. Other than Love, our only offense from big players are via Keefe's and Luc's "garbage" (slang for putbacks). And Aboya really only brings defense and attitude. I love the 2nd chance points as much as the next guy, but where other teams have 2nd post options Deon Thompson and Alex Stephenson shooting 68% for the tourney, and we have two guys who only make layups and free throws, we have a talent gap.

At guard, DC and Russell are great, but Chalmers and Rush are in the same ballpark, and Collins and Robinson are probably both better than our 3rd guard/wing (Shipp). And our 4th guard/wing (Roll) was injured, like KU's 5th one (Stewart), but Stewart could be considered a better talent than Roll. As with forward, we lack scoring options at 1-3. With Shipp spending the 2nd half of the season in a slump and Luc being unable to effectively play offense from the wing, we again had an entire position on offense (the 3) that was basically unable to score. When Love, Westbrook or Collison went to the bench, that number dropped to 2 options on offense.

Lack of depth really hurt us on the offensive end. No microwave Vinnie Johnson off the bench. We need something like that to be effective for entire games.

When you get to the tournament, match-ups become a big part of the game. Teams like Kansas who have 9 players that are as talented as our 5th guy have a big advantage in that they can employ a variety of lineups to match their opponent (veratility). Their starters can remain fresh. They can score while their starters are on the bench. Or if their #1 point guard is having a bad game, they might have someone on the bech who can pick up the slack. Due to injuries, surprising NBA defections and, most significantly, having virtually no talent and a bad program when he began 5 years ago, we did not have these luxuries this year.

That Howland got the team this far with 3 studs, one very good major-conference NCAA starter (Luc), one average major-conference NCAA starter (Shipp), one big backup with potential (Keefe), and two decent back-ups with limitations to play at this level (Mata and Aboya), and two other scholarship players who are not ready to play at this level is pretty remarkable. Ten scholarship players, only 8 of whom had any usefulness in this tourney, and, ho-hum, we have another final 4.

Now that the program has arrived, Howland needs to parlay this success into 4-player recruiting classes every year (to account for some early defections). That will not be easy at a school with UCLA's admissions requirements, perceived offensive blandness and defense-first philosophy. But it can be done, and you could say that with this next class, it is being done. In my view, once Howland has sufficient depth of talent, nothing will stop him from collecting banners for the hallowed grounds of Pauley Pavilion.

Now that really puts a smile on my face.