By AJ Cadman
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
With the imminent departures of sophomores Jerome Moiso and
JaRon Rush and possibly freshman Jason Kapono to the NBA, you might
expect UCLA men’s basketball head coach Steve Lavin to worry
about next year.
After a Sweet 16 appearance in the 2000 NCAA Tournament, the
offseason events have forced Lavin to cut short plans of a vacation
in June to focus on reloading for next season. But the soon-to-be
fifth-year head coach has taken it all in stride.
“Like Duke last year, we have to reload,” Lavin said
Monday, referring to a Blue Devil squad that brought in five
McDonald’s All-Americans. “In the nine years that I
have been here, recruiting has been the life blood of our
program.
“You have to look for a balanced class and to try to find
a good mix,” he added. “You may lose some players to
the pros, but you must also have program players.”
With the potential loss of 43 percent of the team’s
scoring output (1,066 of 2,492 points) and 36 percent of the
team’s rebounding (447 of 1,252) from last season, Lavin must
look elsewhere for production.
“The irony is that all the guys leaving has helped our
recruiting,” he said. “Definitely in the last couple of
weeks, we’ve gotten more calls and more people recruiting us
because they want to have the opportunity to make an impact at a
high level.”
“We feel pretty confident we’re about to put
together a really good (recruiting) class,” Lavin said.
“(T.J.) Cummings is going to make a big impact and Josiah
(Johnson) is probably the biggest sleeper in terms of recruiting
that we’ve had since I have been here.”
Just as UCLA was able to find a gem in Kapono after the signing
period last year, Lavin will still have the opportunity to sign
athletes grant-in-aid scholarships, which essentially serve the
same purpose as the standard athletic scholarship.
Should Kapono pull out of the draft and return to Westwood for
his sophomore campaign, the Bruins would still have two
scholarships available for the next season. With six scholarships
already in waiting for 2001, UCLA could increase the total to
seven.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us (next
year),” point guard Earl Watson said. “We are going to
have to work hard, but we have the players. It’s going to be
hard to lose those guys. But UCLA recruits the best.”
“Our concern is to get another 6-foot-10 player ““ a
big guy in the post to get his feet wet,” Lavin said in
reference to speculation that center Dan Gadzuric will leave for
the NBA after next season.
UCLA currently has its eyes targeted on 6-foot-10 Jair Veldhuis
of Tamalpais High School in Northern California. He has impressed
the coaching staff with his size and talent. To go along with
Veldhuis is 6-foot-1 point guard Tony Parker of France.
But for now, Lavin has Watson and sophomores Gadzuric and Matt
Barnes slated as probable starters next season and hopes for the
upperclassmen to “step up and take the minutes.” The
other two starting positions are up-for-grabs pending
Kapono’s decision and the play of the recruits.
Barnes, who was considering joining the UCLA football team, has
decided to keep his focus on the basketball court, Lavin said.
“Barnes told me last week he would not be playing
football. I wasn’t going to force him into the
position,” he said. “I wanted to make him aware that he
has the potential to earn the starting forward spot next year. But
I didn’t want to squelch his dream.”
While Lavin remains optimistic that Kapono may return to UCLA,
he is also realistic about the program’s future with or
without him.
“I wouldn’t have predicted he’d leave after
one year,” Lavin said. “He feels very confident that
he’s going to be a first-rounder, but he wants to leave the
door open as a safety net,”
“If he weren’t to be a first-rounder, then,
obviously, coming back makes sense because he could play himself
into maybe a lottery pick,” he added.
Some have already questioned Kapono’s decision, which he
announced last Saturday, the day before the deadline for
underclassmen to declare themselves eligible for the June draft.
Former Bruin Toby Bailey, now with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns,
could have left early like Kapono after an impressive freshman
campaign that was capped by a national title in 1995. Opting to
remain at the school for another three years, Bailey also thought
Kapono would be one of Lavin’s “program
players.”
“I thought he would be one who stayed all four
years,” Bailey said. “I thought he would be the one who
breaks all the records.”
Sometime between now and June 21, the deadline for Kapono to
pull his name out of the draft, the Bruin faithful will know
whether he will do just that and will then get a better idea of
what the UCLA basketball team will look like next season.