LEXINGTON, Ky. — It is put up or shut up time for the UCLA men’s basketball team.
And maybe that’s as it should be.
With the changes that have transformed college basketball, and the nervousness over the possibility that March Madness as we know it could be irrevocably changed – or even destroyed – by the desire of the haves to continue to separate themselves from the sport’s have-nots, one thing doesn’t change: You lose, you go home.
“I keep it real: The guy with the best players usually wins,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said at his pre-tournament news conference on Wednesday, in anticipation of the 22-10 Bruins’ first-round matchup against Utah State (25-7) on Thursday at 6:25 p.m. PT. “There are multiple books with Coach (John) Wooden’s name on it, in quotes. In almost every instance of his interviews, he says usually when two teams play, the guy with the best players usually wins.
“Right now the team with the most money usually has the best players. Usually. Usually. There have been some teams that have done great in the portal, like us, without the most money. And getting guys like Tyler Bilodeau, Eric Dailey, guys that were not ranked as big-time portal guys by your people (media) that do that … it’s like that in every sport, right? In free agency, guy goes under the radar and becomes a great pickup, like the Dodgers had last year at the end of July (with Tommy Edman).”
It is, Cronin added, “a wild time to be a coach.”
But the expectations don’t change, even as the method of acquiring players has. UCLA hasn’t won a national championship since 1995, but those 11 banners in the Pauley Pavilion rafters still represent lofty standards for a program that not only has a statue of Wooden outside of Pauley Pavilion but a glassed-in exhibit of the Pyramid of Success on the arena concourse.
It’s no different in this town, with a Kentucky program that has won eight NCAA titles but none since 2012. Or in the Chapel Hill/Durham region, where North Carolina (seven titles) hasn’t won one since ’17 – and is in this year’s field by something less than popular demand – and Duke (five titles) hasn’t hung a banner since ’15.
And I’m sure they’re even restless in Storrs, Conn., where the defending champion men’s team (23-10, six NCAA titles, including the last two) is only a No. 8 seed and the women (11 titles) haven’t won one since 2016, when Geno Auriemma’s team won its fourth in a row.
Still, in an era of unlimited transfers and players entering the portal in search of better deals, March Madness might be the one true egalitarian sports pursuit we have. The little guys share the stage with the behemoths, and all it takes is one hot night to make history.
Consider Thursday’s matchup. Utah State is making its third straight tournament appearance under three different coaches, and this year it finished third in the Mountain West and reached the final of its conference tournament. But if there are expectations in Logan, Utah, they’re just beginning to build. The Aggies have reached the NCAA Tournament 25 times in the event’s 86 seasons, and have won more than one game in six of them.
Jerrod Calhoun, in his first year as Utah State’s head coach – and his first visit to March Madness after five seasons at Division II Fairmont State and seven at Youngstown State – explained the approach this way in his Wednesday press conference by noting the three graduate students on his roster, guards Ian Martinez, Dexter Akanno and Drake Allen.
“This is their last go,” he said. “I want to do everything I can in my power to put them into a good position to go make plays and be confident. We owe it to those guys.”
UCLA has made 62 NCAA appearances dating to 1949-50, 76 seasons ago. In only nine of those have the Bruins gone home after one game. (And, incidentally, UCLA is 3-0 against Utah State in NCAA play, winning in 1962, 1970 and 2001.)
Cronin’s answer at the top of this column was in response to a question regarding the Southeastern Conference and its attempt, via resources and emphasis, to raise its basketball profile to match that of its football product. It evidently bore fruit, given that the SEC put 14 teams in the 68-team field – or, to put it another way, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey could only beef about his 15th-place team not getting in.
(That was LSU, in this case. The Tigers were 14-18.)
But building a roster that can contend for a championship today, as Cronin noted, is different in so many ways. NIL resources are important (and Cronin was an early adopter, at least on his campus, in hyping the Men of Westwood collective). The revenue-sharing component of the House v. NCAA settlement, pending court approval, will change the dynamic further. And at some point there will have to be a determination whether college athletes should be considered employees.
Has that dampened, at all, the enthusiasm surrounding March Madness? I don’t see it, although there are those who have become disenchanted with what they consider the quasi-professional nature of intercollegiate athletics. But we’re not going back to the old days, when the cash changed hands under the table.
Anyway, we all have brackets, right? The NCAA tournaments, both men’s and women’s, might be as popular an audience participation vehicle as exists in sports.
Even with the changes in the economics of the game and of player movement, if the little guy aims his slingshot just so, amazing things can happen. As long as there remains a place for those little guys and the potential for jaw-dropping upsets, we will watch, and we will grouse about busted brackets.
After all, money can’t buy everything, can it?
jalexander@scng.com