This wasn’t like the losses to Oregon and Stanford. Saturday’s loss to West Virginia won’t mean that much in the greater scheme of things. Sure, it would’ve been great had the Bruins finished off the comeback. But this loss shouldn’t be as deflating as the Oregon and Stanford losses were.
It has often been said that point guard is the most important position in college basketball, and UCLA was playing without Darren Collison.
If Collison’s injury lingers, this excuse won’t hold. But it applies on Saturday because it was Russell Westbrook’s first career start.
Collison is day-to-day, but even if his injury lingers, it’s doubtful that Westbrook would play as badly as he did on Saturday. It’s safe to say that Westbrook won’t shoot 1-for-11 with only one more assist (four) than he had turnovers (three) if he continues to start.
Until the latter part of the second half, UCLA’s offense did not look in sync, as everyone should expect without your starting point guard getting significant minutes for the first time. When the Bruins started to come back in the second half, the offense did improve.
The comeback is another reason why this loss doesn’t seem as bad as the other two. The Bruins were down by as many as 19 points and went on a 15-0 run to cut the lead to four.
That is what you expect from championship-caliber teams. With so many talented teams across the country, it is extremely likely that come tournament time, there will be at least one game where everything goes right for the other team and the Bruins find themselves behind by a significant margin. And just like they’ve shown all year, the Bruins never give up.
So while there is no such thing as a good loss, Saturday’s game was not a terrible loss.
This week, there will be some in the national media that argue that West Virginia’s win over UCLA shows a weakness in the Pac-10. Surely, the average fan on the East Coast who watched the nationally-televised loss on Saturday but may have missed the 21 wins may get that impression.
But this was just one game among the over 100 nonconference games Pac-10 teams have played. The Pac-10 has been strong overall and UCLA’s strength of schedule has been strong. Saturday’s loss won’t change that.
If anything, I’m more confident now than ever that the NCAA selection committee will give UCLA a fair seed when the brackets are made.
This past week, the NCAA invited members of the Basketball Writers of America to participate in a mock selection day, making them adhere to the same rules and guidelines as the real selection committee does.
Many of the writers who wrote about the process marveled that the committee goes over every team’s season in detail, considering everything.
So while UCLA will likely fall lower than it should in the national polls this week, the members of the selection committee will keep that one loss in perspective with the whole season.
A win on Saturday would’ve been great. But as long as the Bruins learn from Saturday’s loss, it won’t be so bad in the grand scheme of the season.