Is UCLA an Elite Program in basketball anymore?

final 4 in the last 3 out of 5 years. yes...i'd say so.

People have terrible attention spans.


How long ago was it that they reached three consecutive Final Fours?


People were saying the same thing about Bama when they were getting turned down left and right by coaches before they threw the house at Saban.

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See KY before Calipari or ND football before last season.

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Wut?

So, you are throwing out Rick runs and Tubby's. The drunk was a 2 year stint and Tubby was stinking in his last 2 years.

I get it Matt....but when Tubby left UK, Cal wanted the UK job...we just did not call him thinking we were getting Billy Donavan.

Surely some coaches wanted the UCLA job, because it is Elite, right?

So, this is UCLA's Drunk hire, but they sure had a bunch of them since Wooden...should had kept Ben.

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8 teams in the Pac 12 (err, Pac 10) have won more conference titles then UCLA since Wooden had retire.

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Wooden retired in 1975, the following season UCLA won the Pac-10 for the 18 time. UCLA won the their 31st conference championship this year. That's 14 titles since Wooden left, only one school in the conference has more than 14 titles all time. That school is Cal and they have only won the Pac12 once since 1960.

There are different levels of elite. I think there is duke, Kentucky, UNC, and Kansas and then there is UConn, Cuse, UCLA, maybe Arizona...

My bad, I mis-read. This is comparing to the so called "Elite" programs. (credit KSR)


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You could say an entire generation of people have grown up without physically seeing the elite UCLA teams our parents would talk about and since Wooden’s retirement in 1975, 8 teams have won more titles then the Bruins including all of the “elite” teams I mentioned earlier along with Florida, Louisville, Indiana, and Connecticut.

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No, just Kentucky - you're the only elite program obviously b/c you won a title within the last 2 years.

Using your criteria poor Indiana and Kansas.

indiana is actually not a presently elite program anymore IMO. and ucla is dangerously close.

this depends on your personal amount of elite programs but since there's a big separation after kentucky, kansas, duke, and unc, i stop elite right there. hell, florida is practically next in line too.

I still think UCLA is/will always be an elite basketball program but the past 2 years have been detrimental to its reputation, despite having the number 1 overall draft class and winning the PAC 12 last year. From what I've heard, Howland was never respected by the high caliber players he recruited, who were usually 1-and-done anyways, so I think the only concern with hiring a new head coach would be to find someone who demands respect. In my opinion, if Alford is gonna have any success as the head coach of UCLA, he needs to establish himself as a coach better than Howland did early on, otherwise UCLA will be in the same situation it's in now in a few years.