UCLA Basketball: Coach Steve Alford’s Seat is Hotter than Ever for 2018-19
With the infusion of top talent and the subtraction of the Ball family, Coach Steve Alford feels the heat like none other. Can the UCLA Basketball leader overcome the pressure again?
UCLA fans were ecstatic when the school announced that Shaquille O’Neal’s son, Shareef, would be on campus in September. He had verbally committed in February but didn’t sign his National Letter of Intent. O’Neal’s signing caps off an incredible recruiting class for Steve Alford. ESPN has UCLA’s recruiting class ranked 3rd behind Duke and Kentucky.
Along with O’Neal, the Bruins have signed Moses Brown (Center), Jules Bernard (Small Forward), David Singleton III (Shooting Guard), Tyger Campbell (point guard) and Kenny Nwuba (Center). A top-flight recruiting class along with the exit of the Ball Family should make Coach Steve Alford one of the happiest coaches in the country.
The flip side to all this good news is, with great recruiting classes comes great responsibility. Since Alford has come to UCLA, the Bruins have won no regular season conference titles and only one Pac-12 tournament. One could even put an asterisk beside the conference tournament championship since it happened in his first season as the Bruins head coach with Ben Howland’s recruits.
After that, the Bruins would make the tournament the next season before missing out of the tournament in 2015-2016. The 15-17 record was the worst for Alford since his first season at Iowa (14-16). Problem is, UCLA isn’t Iowa. Where there would be a certain amount of patience exercised by the Hawkeyes and their fans, any coach of UCLA must be able to live in the shadow of its storied history. Finishing 10th in the Pac-12 wasn’t going to be tolerated.
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Help was quickly on its way in the form of Lonzo Ball and the always vocal LaVar. Alford and the Bruins would quickly bounce back with a 31-5 record before bowing out to Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.
But when you make a deal with the Balls, you get all of them. That meant the less talented, LiAngelo Ball would be in a Bruin uniform whether he deserved to be or not. And there’s nothing worse than a less talented player becoming a distraction and that’s what would soon happen.
On the Bruins’ season-opening trip to China, LiAngelo, along with Jalen Hill and Cody Riley, were arrested for shoplifting. This would set off a media frenzy and bold claims by the President of the United States that the arrest impacted our relationship with China.
The University would suspend all three players indefinitely leading to LiAngelo Ball’s withdrawal from school and “costing” Alford the much more talented, LaMelo. The indefinite suspension turned into a season-long suspension for Riley and Hill. Riley would test the NBA waters along with fellow freshmen, Kris Wilkes and Jaylen Hands, but all three would decide to return to the program.
That’s what makes this UCLA team so intriguing. It seems like a perfect storm for Alford. He has solid returning talent and a top-flight recruiting class. He’s completely out of the LaVar Ball business and winning the Pac-12 conference is a realistic goal even though to the gap between the top and the middle is shrinking. The focus will be on what UCLA does on the court and the expectation is high. It’s why Alford is sitting on the hottest seat in America.