Thirty minutes before the 2009 NCAA Tournament bracket was announced on Sunday afternoon, UCLA men’s basketball coach Ben Howland knew the Bruins’ fate.
A former player and current CBS employee tipped Howland off to what the Selection Committee had in store for the Bruins, trying to make it a fourth consecutive Final Four appearance. So when CBS’s Greg Gumbel announced that the Bruins were the No. 6 seed in the East Regional, opening up against No. 11 Virginia Commonwealth in Philadelphia on Thursday, it was more of a justification than a revelation.
For the first time in three years, the Bruins (25-8, 13-5 Pac-10) will have to leave the friendly West Coast and travel across the country for the tournament’s early rounds.
Last year, the Bruins were the No. 1 seed in the West, traveling to Anaheim (45 minutes away) and Phoenix before heading to San Antonio for the Final Four. The two years before that, the Bruins were the No. 2 seed in the West and did not have to leave the state prior to the Final Four.
This time around, the Bruins do not have that luxury. Placed in the East Regional of the bracket, the Bruins open up in Philadelphia against VCU. Should the seeds play out, the Bruins would advance to play No. 3 seed Villanova on the same court that the Wildcats play half of their home games. And should the Bruins move past Philadelphia, the Bruins would play the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games in Boston, with potential foes in No. 2-seeded Duke and No. 7-seeded Texas, a team that defeated UCLA earlier this year.
Suffice it to say, the Bruins find themselves in quite an unfamiliar situation.
“It’s different for us,” Howland said. “We haven’t been the underdog in the last few years. We know we’re going to have to play very well to get out of Philadelphia and move on to the next set of rounds.”
Heading into the tournament last weekend, the Bruins felt that they were deserving of either a No. 4 or 5 seed, with many prognosticators placing them in the West.
Yet with the disappointing loss came a fall in seeding, leaving many players not surprised by the No. 6 seed.
“Not at all (surprised),” senior forward Josh Shipp said. “We didn’t take care of business, so we expected to be sent off.”
One thing that was apparent in that discouraging loss to the Bruins’ crosstown rivals was that senior point guard Darren Collison was not 100 percent. In the final game of the regular season the week prior, Collison took a hard foul and fell squarely on his tailbone. Collison had an X-ray on his tailbone after the game and was diagnosed with a bone bruise.
While he seemed close to full strength in the Bruins’ 64-53 win over Washington State last Thursday, playing back-to-back nights left Collison at less than full strength.
“Just that last game at Pac-10 against USC I felt like I wasn’t nearly 100 percent as I could have been,” Collison said. “I think that’s going to be a key factor for myself. As soon as I get healthy these next couple days I’ll be ready to play Thursday.”
Collison said that he felt much better, and that the time off from now until Thursday’s game will be much-needed. As Collison emphasized, the Bruins need him to be healthy for them to succeed.
“Our whole thing is at the defensive end, it starts with me,” Collison said. “So as long as I’m pressuring the ball and doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then everything else should be working out for itself, and that’s why I got to get healthy.”
VCU (24-9, 14-4 Colonial Athletic Association) presents an intriguing first-round matchup for the Bruins. Two years ago, the Rams upset Duke in the first round of the tournament, catapulting themselves into the nation’s consciousness. This year, the Rams will look to make a repeat performance and already have at least one fan in the national media. Shortly after the bracket was announced, CBS’s Seth Davis said he was picking VCU to pull the upset.
When a reporter asked what his thoughts were on the prediction, Howland smiled.
“Good for Seth.”
Winner of the CAA conference title, the Rams are an athletic team and present possible problems for the Bruins. The Rams are led offensively by senior guard Eric Maynor, who is averaging 22.4 points per game.
“They’re a team that really is high-octane, run up and down (and) press you,” Howland said.
Howland added that the Bruins have 16 films of VCU and will study the film and prepare over the next three days. The Bruins will practice Monday and Tuesday morning in Westwood before flying to Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
The Pittsburgh Panthers were selected as the No. 1 seed in the East Regional, with Duke as the No. 2 seed. Villanova is the No. 3 and Xavier is at No. 4 to round out the region’s top teams.
Freshman guard Jrue Holiday was free of expectations on Selection Sunday, focusing more on the excitement of tournament time.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Holiday said. “I really just went by what coach would tell us. We really didn’t fulfill what we wanted to do, and we would have been in a better position then.”
For the three seniors ““ Collison, Shipp and center Alfred Aboya ““ this will be their last tournament experience, and they don’t want to go home empty-handed again.
“There’s one reason why Darren, Josh and myself came back is to finish what we started, finish the business and win the national championship,” Aboya said. “It didn’t happen for the past three years. We got close, but we never finished. And this year the goal is to win it all. But to win it all we have to go through VCU first. We’ll see the rest after that.”
After spending his first three years in the tournament in the West, Collison will play in a foreign time zone for the first two games. But according to Collison, where the Bruins play in the beginning doesn’t matter. Only the final destination does.
“Wherever we play, whether we play here or Japan, we’re going to play in Detroit,” Collison said. “That’s where we’re going to end up at.”