OAKLAND “”mdash; Sitting at mid-court with under a minute
remaining and his team leading, UCLA senior Cedric Bozeman was in
no rush to stand back up.
While patiently waiting for teammates to come to his aid,
Bozeman held his right arm in the air and pointed his index finger
in a particular direction.
Which direction was he pointing toward?
Northeast. Indianapolis. The Final Four. Familiarity.
The Bruins are back, sort of.
After a grinding 50-45 victory over No. 1 seed Memphis in the
Elite Eight in Oakland on Saturday, UCLA occupies what was a
once-familiar spot in the Final Four, but used quite an unfamiliar
brand of basketball to get there.
It wasn’t via the glamour and glitz commonly associated
with the storied UCLA men’s basketball program.
Instead the Bruins did it with grit and guts, tenacity and
toughness, producing the lowest-scoring regional final since 1985
and playing a brand of basketball that may not appear flashy or fun
to watch, but according to the men wearing “UCLA”
jerseys, was a “beautiful” display on Saturday.
And that’s exactly what has UCLA (31-6) making its 16th
appearance in the Final Four and first presence since winning the
national championship in 1995 when, just like this year, the Bruins
went through Oakland to get there.
“UCLA has been down for a couple of years, and I thought
it’d be a great challenge (to get the program back),”
sophomore point guard Jordan Farmar said.
“I’ve done some crazy things in my life with all the
odds against me. I’m just hoping we can finish this one
off.”
In Indianapolis awaits No. 4 seed LSU, who disposed of Texas in
overtime in the Atlanta Region on Saturday to also advance to the
Final Four.
The emotion of getting to Indianapolis, however, evoked
different responses depending on whom you asked.
For Bozeman, getting there is validation for a career he feared
would have been somewhat forgotten had he not reached the Final
Four.
“My career would have been a distant memory if we
didn’t make it,” said Bozeman, who clutched the game
ball well after the final horn and safely guarded the cut-down net
in the corner of his locker.
“Now my name will be etched in UCLA history. I’m
part of the team that brought UCLA back to prominence.”
For sophomores Farmar and Arron Afflalo, getting there is just
another step in achieving their reiterated pledge of restoring UCLA
to its rightful place in college basketball. Each acknowledged that
they’re not there quite yet.
“We’re almost there, almost there,” Afflalo
said. “I don’t feel like this program will be fully
restored until we’ve won it all. But we’re very
close.”
“Not yet, we still have more work to do,” Farmar
said. “One appearance isn’t restoring the program. We
have to make this consistent.”
For senior Ryan Hollins, getting there is an extension of the
best stretch of basketball of his entire career. The UCLA center
was named the Oakland Regional’s Most Outstanding Player
after his 14-point, nine-rebound performance against Memphis on
Saturday.
For freshman Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, getting there is an idea
he temporarily dismissed during the middle of the season when the
Bruin roster was decimated by injuries.
“When we got the injuries, the idea of getting to the
Final Four started to fade away,” Mbah a Moute said.
“When everyone came back, I started believing again.
Everything’s worked out, I guess.”
And for UCLA coach Ben Howland, getting there is exactly what he
was brought in to Westwood three years ago to do.
While UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero believed the
men’s basketball program would in time ascend to its once
prestigious level, even he was taken aback by the speed at which
Howland achieved it.
“I knew this moment would come. But to turn it around in
such a short period of time is absolutely incredible,”
Guerrero said.
“And (Howland) did it with exactly the things we thought
were important for the program. Discipline. Unselfish play. Being
tough-minded. And just believing in each other.”
It should come as no coincidence that each of the attributes
Guerrero mentioned was on full display at the Arena on Saturday
against Memphis.
In the Bruins’ and Tigers’ last meeting, Memphis
made sure Madison Square Garden’s scoreboard was fully
functional, lighting up UCLA for 88 points, the most points ceded
to an opponent this season.
On Saturday, Memphis futilely struggled to score half that
many.
“I don’t think I could even dream about that,”
said Farmar about limiting Memphis, a team averaging over 80 points
a game, to just 45 points in the Elite Eight.
Tiger senior Rodney Carney, the team’s leading scorer,
managed only five points.
Memphis freshman Shawne Williams, who torched the Bruins for 26
points in their prior meeting, went 2-for-9 from the field and
scored only eight points.
The Tigers shot a season-low 31.5 percent from the field and
scored a season-low 45 points, a performance which had Rodney
Carney, just like Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison two days before, at
mid-court, kneeling on the NCAA logo, stunned at what had just
transpired.
“I needed to gather myself,” Carney said.
So did his teammates, many of whom buried their faces in towels
while NCAA officials were distributing Final Four paraphernalia to
UCLA players, coaches and administrators.
Yet the celebration that ensued was not as flamboyant as the one
that followed the Bruins’ stunning comeback against Gonzaga
on Thursday.
After the game, Hollins calmly walked over to the media table
and offered his fist to several reporters sitting courtside; Farmar
simply raised both his hands in the air; Afflalo quickly lined up
to shake the hands of the defeated Tigers.
According to Afflalo, UCLA’s reaction was one of joy, but
not of surprise.
“I remember preseason, our first media day, I said the
personnel on this team have the potential to be a Sweet 16 team,
and with a little luck and some good execution, could be a Final
Four team,” Afflalo said.
“A lot of people probably snickered at that, wrote a few
comments about that. It’s very gratifying for that to come
true.
“I didn’t say national championship though, but
that’s what you strive for. You don’t just strive to
get to the Final Four.”
And that’s why Afflalo, just as he did after the Pac-10
Tournament, lingered near mid-court while his teammates each cut
down a piece of the net at the Arena in Oakland.
“That’s not the one I want,” Afflalo said.
“The one I want is in Indy.”