JBL | The Quadaily 25, 2028 (Day 130): Long Beach is the Story, and the Sad, Sordid Tale of UCLA
If you were to ask someone about what happened over the last two days, they would have told you, oh, UCLA lost. So did BYU. And Louisville.
We respond with, who gives a damn about those teams this year? Sure, they're fine programs...but they had terrible years, each of which are now over, and therefore, they are out of the conversation.
(Sorry, fans of UCLA, BYU and Louisville. We'll see you next year.)
(Actually, UCLA fans...you might want to stick around. Or get out now and don't come back to this piece.)
We begin with Long Becah State.
The 49ers, the top seed in the Big West Tournament, fell to 8th-seeded Cal State Northridge, 81-75, in the first round. Izzy Ismail's 18 (on 6-17 shooting, and he was a -2), and Christian English's 10 (he was a +22) led the Matadors to slay the bulls of the conference.
(By the way, we find it really interesting that Ismail and Issac Russo, who combed for 28 points, finished as a -18 combined. Russo was -16 in his 17:40, which makes no sense because he was a 145.5/116.8 on the evening. Then again, the 49ers had an ORtg of 110.3, so...take that for what you will.
The 49ers were the overwhelming favorite to push through the Cal States and win the conference. Instead, they'll be off to the JIT, and the crown falls to UC Irvine and UC Stata-Barbara.
They were the only top seed to see their quest for the chip end so suddenly yesterday. Bryant tried hard to give away the NEC crown, but they survived San Francis (PA), 71-68.
For the 49ers, their gamble to sign transfer Samir Barnard paid huge dividends. He was the conference Player of the Year, as well as an All-Quad Second 5 selection. The 7-foot former Badger posted 17.7 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, shooting 63.3% from the field and 81.0% from the line. His soft hands around the rim, and ability to finish through contact, made him the hero the 49ers needed and got.
Unfortunately, his career, filled with unrealized potential and wasted minutes at Wisconsin, is over, falling short of 874 points (well, he had 873). He projects as a Euro player, though traditional bigs are passe there. Still, someone will sign his size and ability around the rim, as well as ability to rebound. (Just don't ask him to D up too much.)
That was yesterday's big shock. What will we see today?
No, U Don't CLA: The UCLA Bruins and their fans should skip this next piece. This piece won't be kind to them. It will be painful, bring up bad memories, and perhaps force some to print this out and burn it.
Please, think of the recycling.
The Bruins were ranked 16th in the preseason. In the Pac-12 that put them behind USC, Washington, and that's it. Third in the conference. That's where we had them pegged. Other publications felt they were a darkhorse for the Final Four. Of course, teams in this range are darkhorses. Any spots above are frontrunners. Any below are sleepers. But in this range, this 12-20 range...they are the darkhorses.
The Bruins moved up to 14th on Day 5, and stayed there for a week. An 89-87 loss to Michigan State did nothing to dissuade people that the darkness was coming to Westwood.
They fell sharply on Day 19, after losing by 14 at home to San Diego State. That would result in SDSU's first appearance in the Next. This is an interesting correlation, that SDSU's fragile, some would say fraudian, resume began being built by the season's ultimate fraud.
Things seemed to stablize for a day, as UCLA pummeled New Mexico (a team that would not see their ascension for another month, when they beat SDSU and UNLV at home, and suddenly found themselves atop the MWC). But the fall was coming, it was coming quick, and it came from a rather interesting bedfellow.
Louisville.
The Cardinals, spoken in revered tones when, in reality, no version of them this season qualified them as relevant, beat them, 86-80. Then they went to Notre Dame and lost, 95-88. THen came a pummeling at Kansas, 86-68.
That dropped the Bruines to 4-5 overall.
After the Louisville loss, we pulled them out of our rankings altogether. We figured it wouldn't be too long until we would see them again. They had too much talent. Then we saw the loss to Notre Dame. Still, teams go through rough stretches early on. Look at Memphis and Cincinnati. They would right their ship in no time.
They won at Nebraska, then fell to Gonzaga at home, 89-81. They limped into conference play at 5-6. But they opened with Colorado at home. We really liked the Buffaloes (they were 12th in our ranking on Day 56)...but this was a quality opponent at home. UCLA should prevail in this one, and that may propel them to get back on track.
Colorado won by 13.
Then came an absolutely inexplicable 85-55 loss at Arizona State, a team that finished 12-19, and 4-16 in conference play. Obviously, this was a meltdown worthy of the HIndenburg. The Titanic had this kind of staggering descent, but nobody was around to point at it.
Suddenly, UCLA won two huge games, at home against Arizona and Stanford. There is life in this team yet, people thought. Little did we realize, Arizona was utterly terrible then (we guess they saw what Memphis did and said, hold our beer), and Stanford would be prone to losing random games on the road.
The Bruins lost at Washington, which was excusable. The Huskies are tough. They would battle for the conference title all year. It was expected that the Bruins would have joined that fight, but perhaps they would be a late entrant.
They won two more games, against Washington State and at an Oregon team that decided it had enough of the 2028 ride, it needed to get off (this was the first of sixteen straight losses to end the season...ironically enough, their last win came against Arizona State). Perhaps UCLA caught whatever cotagion Oregon was carrying that day, though.
You see, UCLA would win just one game the rest of the season.
It started at home against Utah, which was forgivable. The Utes beat North Carolina and USC, and forced UConn to play one of their hardest games all season. It continued at USC, which was okay. The Trojans battled for the conference title in the way most thought UCLA would.
But then they lost at Cal on an inbounds play in which UCLA left Sam Holmes wide open for a lob dunk with less than a second on the clock. This came right after Jordyn Cannon had tied it up on his own lob dunk, off a beautiful pass from Jimmy Charnov.
That loss, that one right there...seemed to deflate them. They fell at home to Oregon State, then got swept by Arizona State. They weren't convincing as an opponent to Arizona or Stanford, and got blown out by Washington at home.
It wasn't until 119, when they beat Cal (on Senior Day), 87-71, that they got some sense of relief. The losses mounted up. The team seemed to mutiny, at first against the coaching staff, then against one another.They ranked dead last in the nation in oPPG, 355th in DRtg. They were simply a sieve, an open door to a bedroom in a Wild West saloon.
Now, UCLA was third nationally in SOS. The Pac-12 was legit this season. But nobody, certainly not UCLA, expected their soul to be crushed by midseason. They weren't a good defensive team last year (211th in oPPG), but they at least tried (67th in DRtg). Nobody had this combination of lack of defensive ability and effort. It was stunning, really.
Nobody is quite sure what to expect from the Bruins going forward. Certainly people have what they believe to be the blueprint on how to recover. But nobody has a timeline. This is a program that had won at least 19 games every season dating back to 2019. They've reached a national championship game. They've had three lottery picks, one top five pick.
This is...was...a relevant program.
Not now, though.
Time will tell if they get it back.