While the team sits on the precipice of missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons, a recently written expose sheds some light onto why the UCLA men’s basketball program has fallen so far from the upper echelon of college basketball.
The Sports Illustrated piece, rumored for days and published on Wednesday, is titled “Not The UCLA Way” and chronicles the problems plaguing the Bruins since their third-straight Final Four appearance in 2008, tracing each back to ninth-year coach Ben Howland.
The story was penned by senior writer George Dohrmann, who spoke to more than a dozen players and staff members from the last four teams during his two-month long investigation.
Among anecdotes of drug use, infighting and physical abuse by UCLA players comes a damning critique of Howland and his handling of players’ transgressions.
Last week, Howland toed the sidelines for his 300th game as UCLA skipper. Around the same time, he said, he was asked to comment for SI’s story.
One of the sources whose identity wasn’t held anonymous is Reeves Nelson, whom Howland dismissed from the team in December.
Nelson, an All-Pac-10 First-Teamer in 2010-2011, confirmed several instances of physical abuse inflicted upon teammates in practice to SI, saying “I have no trouble admitting that I lost control of my emotions sometimes. I take responsibility for my actions.”
As noted in the story and reiterated by Howland and UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero in Wednesday teleconferences, federal privacy laws prevent them from discussing Howland’s handling of specific players.
Guerrero said “there were some things in there that we had never heard of before” without going into details, while alluding to an internal investigation of the accusations.
Guerrero did single out the severity of the accusations of bullying within the program.
“The one place we have probably fallen short (in) is the area of bullying,” said Guerrero, who has headed the UCLA athletic department for the last 10 years. “That’s concerning. As a result of this particular situation, we’ll probably be looking to add that to our student development program.”
Nelson also once came to blows with Mike Moser and verbally chided Matt Carlino for missing time because of a concussion, according to the story. Both Moser and Carlino transferred and now start at UNLV and BYU, respectively.
Howland called some of the allegations in the story “simply untrue” and “taken out of context” after the story was released Wednesday.
“Never was there an assault,” Howland said. “Often, in the heat of battle, elbows are flying and guys are being physical. … Anything that I felt was something of a serious nature, obviously I would always bring it to (Guerrero) and my superiors and I would deal first-hand with whichever players were involved.”
Though those instances all occurred during Nelson’s first two seasons with the program, he wasn’t disciplined by Howland until the beginning of his junior year, which eventually led to his dismissal.
While Howland has had trouble retaining top players who elect to turn professional, he has had a separate, steady outflow of players.
The story details the undoing of UCLA’s top-ranked 2008 recruiting class, which arrived in Westwood Village with much fanfare: Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee, J’mison “BoBo” Morgan, Drew Gordon and Jerime Anderson.
Holiday and Lee, both currently NBA guards, were described as “serious and professional,” while their three classmates’ “immaturity and lack of effort” was a detriment to UCLA’s success.
According to teammates, Anderson, Morgan and Gordon partied regularly and sometimes showed up to practice intoxicated.
Gordon left the team five games into his sophomore season by “mutual agreement” with Howland and is now New Mexico’s starting center. Morgan was dismissed from the program after his sophomore year. He transferred to Baylor and became eligible to play immediately, though is redshirting this season.
Anderson, Gordon and Morgan did not comment to SI. At Tuesday’s regular weekly media availability, a school spokesman said players ““ including Anderson, the only member of that class who made it to his senior season at UCLA ““ would not comment on rumors of the then-unpublished story.
Lee, currently inactive for the Minnesota Timberwolves after early season knee surgery, said he first heard about the story Tuesday and was not contacted by SI.
“I had the sense that everybody was abiding to (Howland’s) rules,” Lee said of alleged misdeeds by teammates. “I really don’t know.”
Kevin Love, Lee’s NBA teammate and one of 11 Howland-coached Bruins in the league, said after the Timberwolves’ win over the Clippers at Staples Center Tuesday that he had only heard rumors of the story.
“I knew there were a few bad eggs in the program, but (that happens) at every program,” said Love, the linchpin of Howland’s last Final Four team as an All-American freshman center.
Dohrmann’s account leaves out details of the Bruins’ shortcomings on the court, implying that the off-court turmoil caused the UCLA to go 53-42 over the last three seasons.
Dohrmann won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for uncovering academic fraud within Minnesota’s men’s basketball program and more recently uncovered a scandal within the Ohio State football program that led to a “failure to monitor” sanction by the NCAA.
Little of Dohrmann’s story seems to be sanction-worthy, though the mark left on the storied UCLA program could last.