College Basketball: UCLA Could be the Ultimate Sleeper Pick

The success of the UCLA Bruins this season hasn’t been rewarded in the polls or by bracketologists. Al Dannity says this lack of respect could fuel UCLA to a deep run in the Big Dance.

Excuse me?
One off-season and suddenly the Pac-10 can’t get any love from the media. It’s true that 2009/10 was a down year for the conference but that lack of faith has carried over unfairly into this season. We’ve reached a stage where UCLA, a program with 11 NCAA Championships and made three straight Final Fours from 2006-2008, will be legitimately considered a dark horse in March Madness. Much of this doubt seems to stem from the hangover of last season’s mess and unfairly so. Last I checked Ben Howland was still running the show in Pauley Pavilion and a coach with his level of success merits a mulligan.

A national presence
It took a while for UCLA to put all the pieces together this season. College Basketball betting fans know that many of the doubts over the Bruins were forged in a four-game skid from November into December. Consecutive losses to Villanova, VCU, Kansas, and, worst of all, Montana, gave little reason for optimism. UCLA have proved in the months since then that they are a much better outfit than their early run suggests.

They rebounded from those defeats with a six-game winning streak that included a win over BYU. After a 3-3 start to conference play, the Bruins tore through the rest of their schedule on an 11-2 run. In the process they notched up a wins over #17 St John’s and Pac-10 champions #16 Arizona. Yet for all this, the Bruins only threatened to crack the polls towards the end of the season.

Ready for the big time
The RPI rankings don’t help UCLA, placing the Bruins at #33 entering the Pac-10 tournament. The most likely landing spot for UCLA would be a #7 seed, putting them on the right side of the line to benefit from the dearth of quality at-large candidates this season. If the Bruins can get out of the first round, then a potential upset of a #2 seed would be manageable. After that anything is possible. I don’t like UCLA to get to the Final Four but with a serious shortage of elite teams it’s not entirely implausible. This could be a big March for the Bruins, no matter what the polls say.

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