It’s often said that the game is the greatest teacher.
And this season, the Bruins were great learners.
From the first day they stepped on the court together over the
summer to Monday’s NCAA Championship appearance against
Florida, the Bruins grew, transformed, and learned, not only about
each other, but about themselves.
And after the final buzzer went off Monday in Indianapolis,
everyone, from the freshmen to the seniors, has been able to
reflect upon the things this incredible season taught them and what
these lessons will mean in the future.
“Keep fighting,” said senior Cedric Bozeman, who had
to overcome more than anyone else to get to this point. “With
so much adversity throughout the year, we just kept fighting.
“I learned that we’re a tough team, especially
mentally. The mental grind was the toughest part, and this team
fought through it.”
The team fought through it to get to a point very few could have
realistically imagined at the beginning of the season.
“Everybody said that it would be in a couple years,”
freshman Mike Roll said. “No one expected us to get as far as
we did. It’s just crazy. From day one, I knew we were good,
but I didn’t know how good we would be.”
And the lessons learned this season ““ about the small
margin between victory and defeat, about practicing hard every day,
and about winning in the NCAA Tournament ““ will only serve to
benefit this young Bruin team in the future.
UCLA loses senior starters Bozeman and Ryan Hollins, as well as
Michael Fey and Janou Rubin, but everyone else will be a year wiser
and a year better next season.
According to the seniors, the future of UCLA basketball is in
good hands.
“The experience they got and the things that our young
guys learned this year, that’s something that you can’t
take away from them,” Hollins said. “The played
championship-level basketball, and that’s going to stick with
them their next four years. They know what it feels
like.”
The Bruins have no juniors on their roster, and the return of
Josh Shipp plus the addition of McDonald’s All-American James
Keefe will add even more.
Because the majority of the team is comprised of freshmen and
sophomores, no one on the Bruins hesitated when asked if next
year’s team will be better than this year’s NCAA
runner-up. Not even the departing seniors, whose contributions were
so critical to UCLA’s postseason success.
“They’ll be so much better,” Hollins said.
“As long as they stay grounded and humble and keep that same
fire and passion when they play, they’ll be fine.”
Even though this season just ended, one could already see some
of that fire when the Bruins started talking about next year.
“We’ll take some weeks off, and then come right back
to the gym,” freshman Luc Richard Mbah a Moute said.
“We don’t want to fall 40 minutes short next year. We
want to go all the way.”
Sophomore point guard Jordan Farmar, perhaps UCLA’s most
confident and self-assured player, said that while the season
didn’t teach him much about himself, it taught him a lot
about his teammates.
Farmar recounted a time early in the season when Mbah a Moute
expressed his disappointment in himself, because the Cameroonian
freshman didn’t think he was playing as well as he was
capable of playing and felt he was playing out of position.
“I’m like, “˜Luc, you’re doing fine. Just
trust me. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll
be Pac-10 Freshman of the Year; we’ll win the
conference.'” Farmar said.
Mbah a Moute was Pac-10 Freshman of the Year. UCLA won the
conference. Then they won the conference tournament. And then
advanced all the way to the NCAA title game.
According to Farmar, it took sacrifices from everyone.
“Numbers-wise and things like that, we’re all
different people at the lower level, and you have to
sacrifice,” Farmar said. “Everybody has sacrificed, and
that’s the most beautiful part about this whole thing.
Everyone has sacrificed something for us to come one game away from
winning a national championship.”
Next season, it’s fairly certain that the sacrifices will
continue.
That’s because the goal remains the same.
“Next year we’ll have a bull’s-eye right here
on the front,” coach Ben Howland said. “There
won’t be any mistake about that. We finished No. 2 in the
country, and we want to be No. 1. We’re going to work hard to
try and reach that goal next year.”