PHOENIX “”mdash; Soon after he gave a slight pat on the lower back to Xavier guard Stanley Burrell, who was exiting the final game of his college career, UCLA’s Russell Westbrook walked over to the Xavier bench with only a couple of minutes left in the game.
Westbrook headed to Xavier coach Sean Miller and, with UCLA’s win already guaranteed, gave the opposing coach a respectful handshake. The look on Westbrook’s face wasn’t celebratory, nor was it very intense. It was simply businesslike.
As UCLA rather easily moved past Xavier, 76-57, on Saturday afternoon to become the first team in the tournament to earn its spot in San Antonio and become the first UCLA team not coached by John Wooden to advance to back-to-back-to-back Final Fours, it was tough for me not to think about Westbrook’s late-game handshake.
It wasn’t a revelation or anything like that. Perhaps Westbrook is a true gentleman, as modest in victory as he is in defeat, but to be honest I don’t know any of the UCLA players or the head coach well enough to make such a claim. For me, Westbrook’s graciousness seemed to carry an air of check-listing efficiency and productivity that has defined the Bruins’ (35-3) season.
Win the Pac-10 regular season and tournament title. Check.
Get the No. 1 seed in the West. Check.
Give a conciliatory gesture to the senior guard and coach of the overachieving mid-major team you destroyed en route to another Final Four berth. Check.
Get that 12th banner for Pauley Pavilion before Kevin Love, Darren Collison and maybe even Westbrook go to the NBA. To be determined.
So, there is still some unfinished business left for UCLA basketball. And that is pretty much how it goes for the coaches at elite college programs. It is not enough that Ben Howland has now made it to three consecutive Final Fours; he needs to win one to “prove something,” as so many local and national pundits have said. But what would Howland prove? That he is a good coach? That he is “a winner”? I think he has pretty much put both of those questions to bed.
But one shouldn’t feel sorry for Howland. He chose these expectations when he pursued the UCLA job five years ago. And just like UNC’s Roy Williams and now Kentucky’s Billy Gillespie, Howland must satisfy a community that always wants more. In case one should doubt that, just look at how hard Xavier’s players took that loss on Saturday. They were crying their eyes out because, more than anything, they wanted to be the guys who took their program to its first Final Four appearance. UCLA clinched its 18th, most all-time. UCLA is Goliath.
And this takes us back to the all-business, no-nonsense approach that Howland has sold and his players have bought. That is why, after UCLA’s 86-76 win over Western Kentucky in the Sweet 16, Kevin Love was calling the Bruins’ performance “unacceptable.” It is the same reason why pundits said that the Bruins have been “slumping” even though they’ve won 14 straight games. The players have embraced what is expected of them, even if the expectations are nothing short of a national title.
So one should not be shocked if the term “flawed” is somehow used to describe the Bruins this week. (This is college basketball. What team isn’t flawed?) Nor should one be surprised if local sports writers mention how boring it is to watch Ben Howland’s style of play. (The response to these people, who are supposed to understand the game of basketball well enough to report on it, should only be: Pay closer attention and you’ll appreciate why the Bruins always seem to win.)
Please ignore all the ticky-tack criticism of the Bruins this week, and enjoy the fact that you will be cheering for Love, second only to Kansas State’s Michael Beasley as America’s best college basketball player. Ignore all those talking heads on ESPN who will question whether or not the Bruins have the offense to win it all, and remember the question that could be asked just as easily: Do the Tar Heels have the defense to win a national title?
So, enjoy Love’s post play, Collison’s funky 3-pointers, Westbrook’s slashing to the basket, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute’s rebounding and defense, and the suspense of whether or not Josh Shipp will make a jump shot. Enjoy it for Howland and his players, who are too busy checking off their list to appreciate what they’ve just accomplished.
E-mail De Jong at adejong@media.ucla.edu.