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by David Bartman
 Another
off-season is almost to a close and the problems that seem to follow
UCLA Men’s Basketball year in and year out are present yet again. The
newest development is the release of top recruit, Evan Burns, from his
National Letter of Intent. Apparently, Evan did not qualify to play
basketball in 2002-2003 and UCLA does not accept partial or
non-qualifiers. Evan was a top 15 nationally ranked recruit that was to
come in and be a major contributor to a team that needs a scoring punch.
Other than Jason Kapono this year’s team has no one who has scored
consistently.
Losing recruits to eligibility is nothing new for Coach Steve Lavin.
Josh Moore failed to qualify, Shae Cotton failed to qualify, and more
recently top center recruit in 2001-2002, Michael Fey, failed to qualify
and will join the team this year. Recently, Dan Guerrero, the new UCLA
Athletic Director addressed a group of alumni and fans, and in his talk
he mentioned that UCLA coaches have to start recruiting the right type
of student athlete for UCLA.
In my opinion, and history seems to back me, Coach Lavin has not been
recruiting the right type of student athlete at UCLA and better hope for
another job saving season. As it stands right now, Evan Burns, UCLA’s
prized recruit is no longer coming to UCLA and Andre Patterson, and up
and coming sophomore forward, looks as though he will not be eligible
until January if at all. I think that these are exactly the types of
incidents that Mr. Guerrero was addressing, and most likely the type
that will not be tolerated for long.
A team that was expected to have a ton of young talent has just lost,
what looked to be, their number two scorer in Evan Burns. The
questionable inside presence will be further weakened if Andre Patterson
is indeed academically ineligible until January. It seems that this is
the final straw; the tradition of UCLA as a national power and elite
basketball school is over. UCLA has failed to win the men’s basketball
conference championship in five years. UCLA has been to one final four
once since 1980, winning the national championship in 1995-96. UCLA has
failed to be ranked in the top 5 in all but that same fateful year since
1980. UCLA’s winning percentage in the first three years of Steve
Lavin’s tenure is higher than the last three years. This is not the
trend of a school headed back towards national prominence. Then again,
neither is losing your top recruit to academic non-qualification. UCLA
basketball does not look as though it will be able to accomplish either
of these feats in the coming year. However, it looks more and more like
a new coach might be trying to lead the Bruins back to the Promised Land
next year.
by David Bartman
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