This year's final is next year's classic Different programs have

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 3, 2006 by Capital-Journal

KURT

CAYWOOD

Florida's Joakim Noah

INDIANAPOLIS --- Tonight's NCAA championship game shapes up as a classic, the perfect ending to the college basketball season.

The 2006-07 college basketball season.

In a tournament rife with upsets, UCLA meeting Florida, a No. 2 seed versus a No. 3 seed, isn't necessarily one of them. Each is a power team from a power conference.

But each was supposed to be a year away.

After losing its top three scorers to graduation and the NBA, Florida even had its own fan Web sites giving it a pass in the preseason.

"Instead of being a contender for a national title ... the Florida Gators will be trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together to maintain their streak of 20-win/NCAA-bid seasons," wrote GatorCountry.com.

The Gators are so youth-oriented that there are six players pictured on the cover of their media guide, and their only senior isn't one of them. They start four sophomores and a junior.

"I didn't know what to expect," UF coach Billy Donovan said.

He couldn't have foreseen 17 consecutive wins to open the season, but by that streak ended with back-to-back losses, he had an idea that this team might be OK.

"Although they're young in terms of their year in school, they're a little but older mentally," he said. "These guys have shown, if you play together as a team, what can be accomplished."

At UCLA, no less an authority than former coach Steve Lavin believed the Bruins' fortunes would fade when sophomore guard Josh Shipp underwent hip surgery that cost him virtually the entire season.

"I think before the season you'd say that UCLA, when they get Josh Shipp back next year, all these kids come back, they're going to be a contender for the national title next year," Lavin said.

The results nearly backed him up. Early on, UCLA escaped Drexel by one, Wagner by two and trailed Coppin State at the half.

But a group that included nine freshmen and sophomores among their top 11 players formed a bond, and a program known for high scoring and LA glitz buckled securely into coach Ben Howland's blue- collar style and won with defense.

"From the guys that were on that team my freshman year, I think three ... are in the NBA," said Cedric Bozeman, their fifth-year senior leader. "This year's team is more about cohesiveness and playing together."

This year's tournament was about upsets. It was the year of the mid-major. Kansas had the same youth and exuberance and chemistry as tonight's finalists but fell to Bradley in the first round. Wichita State returned to glory. George Mason captured the country's imagination.

The mayhem has made this year's tournament the best ever, some have suggested. A few even have tried to extend that to the Final Four, although from a basketball perspective, that's not the case.

From that, we're still a year away.

Kurt Caywood's column regularly appears Mondays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (785) 295-1288 or kurt.caywood@cjonline.com.

Please see CAYWOOD, Page 3D

Continued from Page 1D

Caywood: Youth fueling runs at UCLA, UF

The Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS --- UCLA had Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and all those championship banners. Florida had Vernon Maxwell and Norm Sloan.

Different programs on opposite coasts with divergent histories play for the national championship tonight, though the game is more than that.

Even with a pair of "power" programs going at it, this game offers yet another reminder of how the success of yesteryear no longer guarantees anything for today and how dynasties have been replaced by parity in college basketball.

"Are we a basketball school the way Kentucky and Indiana are?" Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. "Not yet. That's the goal. Will we get there? That's the goal 15 years from now."

Getting there is the goal these days. Staying there isn't possible in the way it was when John Wooden coached. No longer, in this era of ESPN, AAU and AOL, does Wooden sit in his office and wait for players to come.

Still, no one has ever doubted UCLA's status as a basketball school. Eleven national titles can do that for a program. And while the Bruins still use the success of yesterday to build on today, their dynasty is long gone.

UCLA is closer to its last losing season (11-18 in 2003-04) than its last national title (1995, behind Ed O'Bannon and Tyus Edney). Often in the recent past, the history of UCLA has played into the expectations more than the talent level.

Coach Ben Howland, in his third year, got the Bruins back to the top not by riding Wooden's coattails. He did it the same way Billy Donovan did it at Florida, or Billy Gillispie at Texas A&M or Jim Larranaga at George Mason: Recruiting, selling, building a team in his own image, not what someone else thinks it should be.

"With winning, players are going to want to come to UCLA again," said Mike Warren, the captain of the title teams in 1967 and '68. "Now, will we win 10 championships? I don't think so."

One of the few times these teams, who have never played, intersected was when Howland won a recruiting battle against Florida to get guard Jordan Farmar. The LA kid saw big things happening with the Gators, but realized he could be part of a rebuilding program -- - rebuilding at UCLA? --- closer to home.