Wildcats’ 24 years of glory may be over

Though tonight’s men’s basketball game between UCLA and Arizona will pack Pauley Pavilion once again with all the flair and excitement of a Ringling Bros. circus, you may notice that this matchup has taken on a different attitude than it has in the past.

After last year’s departure of Lute Olson, one of the most decorated coaches in Pac-10 history, the Arizona Wildcats’ basketball program has had a role reversal of Freaky Friday proportions.

Although they still hold the longest current streak of consecutive NCAA tournament appearances at 24 straight years, the image portrayed by this current team bears little resemblance to the perennial powerhouses of old.

The navy blue and red jerseys that Bruin fans will welcome tonight carry with them the burden of a Goliath-turned-David story.

Last month, Arizona pulled off an upset of No. 4 Gonzaga. If you had told any basketball fan 10 years ago that the Wildcats beating the Zags could make national headlines, they would have told you to stop munching on those wild cacti.

Fade out in a flashback one decade ago and you get images of Tucson fans so hoops-crazy they thought the basketball hall of fame had moved to the middle of the desert and that little-known school from Eastern Washington was still decked out in glass slippers and a hand-me-down prom dress.

For now at least, these characters have fallen from the college basketball theatre and we are left with a team that is struggling to hold onto the remaining structure of its past glory.

During Olson’s 24-year reign, Arizona produced a long list of hoopsters that made it big at the professional level. Imagine an NBA lineup of all former Wildcats ““ Gilbert Arenas, Mike Bibby, Andre Iguodala, Richard Jefferson, Steve Kerr ““ and you’ve got yourself quite an all-star team.

But in the fast-paced world of collegiate basketball, your prestige is all you have. And with the loss of Olson, Arizona’s reserves of this quality are dropping faster than windowpanes in a riot.

Once Olson’s last recruits leave ““ juniors Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill already have NBA opportunities knocking at their door ““ the era of the void begins.

With a constant need to impress young high school athletes, a school must use every weapon it has if it wants to stay competitive, especially on the scale that Arizona basketball is used to. One of those weapons for them had always been the opportunity to get daily lessons from a certified star-maker in Olson.

That’s what the No. 1 rated prep ball player in the class of 2008, Brandon Jennings, thought he was getting when he committed to play for them last year. Then, like a rat scuttling away from a sinking ship, Jennings rushed off to Italy, shirking the college game altogether to try his hand on foreign shores in preparation for the 2009 NBA Draft.

After Olson announced his retirement in October, three top recruits from the class of 2009 that had committed to the school jumped ship as well, including soon-to-be UCLA freshman Mike Moser.

Here in Westwood, we are spoiled. There is no other way to put it. The repertoire of enticements that our recruiters can lay down to a high schooler is more impressive than an oil company CEO’s benefits package.

Credit, of course, must be given to Ben Howland for reminding the country how powerful the Bruin basketball program can be, but even after he leaves, there is no doubt UCLA will still have the clout to grab a hefty handful of Southern California’s finest athletes.

The basketball tradition here is piled higher than the towers of Royce Hall, and that does a doozy on the mind of a youngster with big dreams. You could tear down Pauley Pavilion and ask players to play their home games on the pile of rubble that remains, and they would do it, as long as they could wear the same blue and gold jerseys that Kareem and Walton once did.

And assuming the sun continues to rise and give us these beautiful California days (in January, really?), how could a recruit trade that in for a North Carolina winter or even a Syracuse spring?

The current exodus of talent at Arizona is unfortunate for them, and the Wildcats may suffer in the coming seasons, but in all likelihood the exodus will be short-lived. Arizona has the faculties and the facilities to get the program back on track soon enough, but not without losing the momentum of their dynasty years.

But if the newly labeled underdog Wildcats have anything to teach Bruin fans on their annual pilgrimage to Nell & John Wooden Court, it’s a lesson in appreciation. The Bruin legacy is a powerful one, but its benefit isn’t just the glimmer from trophies in a glass case or the glow from a lengthy highlight reel ““ it is the lasting security it gives a program for a long future of success.

If you were wooed to Westwood by sunshine, e-mail Smukler at esmukler@media.ucla.edu.

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