On February 29th, 2012, George Dohrmann’s article in Sports Illustrated “exposing” UCLA’s basketball program and Coach Ben Howland was released.

Before this article came out, I noticed tweets from a few sources claiming that this article was rumored to contain information that was “sanction worthy.”

Hardly.

What I gathered from this article is: Some players are drinking alcohol, some players have done drugs, fights have broken out occasionally and Ben Howland has little control over all of these issues.

I’ve been watching UCLA basketball since I can remember, and I have been faithful. As an ex-basketball player, I definitely can sense when a player is just going through the motions and when they really want to win. In the beginning of Howland’s career, the players absolutely wanted the latter. There was a feeling around the program of excitement, dedication and the pure desire to win. The “UCLA way” was back. You could feel it as a fan and you wanted these players to succeed. The best example I can recall of this comes from their first final four run in 2006. Cedric Bozeman, a highly recruited player out of high school, was a senior and was finishing off a not-as-hoped career because of an injury. Somehow, the team managed to rally behind the senior and they reached the finals. I can’t remember exactly if it was after the 17-point comeback against Morrison and Gonzaga, or if it was later down the March Madness road, but when asked about the journey, Ben Howland began to tear up in the post-game press conference. I remember vividly him saying it was “something special.” Although they fell to Florida in the finals, the emotions and work ethic were that of a championship team. Since then, Ben Howland has reached two more final fours and currently has eleven players in the NBA.

That was then. The Sports Illustrated article went into detail about the hopes behind the 2008 recruiting class and the many stages of the “downward spiral” which lead to where the program is today. Through the interviews from former players and staff, most of the blame is being put on Ben Howland. Although I believe a coach is responsible for promoting good character, college basketball players are all adults. Should a coach punish and go through with his consequences? Yes. Should a coach have to contain GPS on his players after practices, games and on the weekends? No. It’s the same idea of having a boss at work. They are in charge of you while you are at work and while you wear the company uniform. Beyond that, you have to make your own decisions.

Which brings me to what has irritated me the most after reading all of this information. If you do not think you can sacrifice a night of partying for what you claim to “love”, they why are you there? You should be so excited for your game the next day that partying shouldn’t even cross your mind. I know it’s college and, especially in LA, life is one giant party. You are surrounded by people who don’t have the same commitments as you. That’s what separates the mature from the immature and the good from the great, though. In the article, it states that at practices, you would see Michael Roll going through his freethrow routine seriously and with great concentration. At another basket, you would see other players shooting them with one hand and fading away. Michael Roll wanted it. The 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08 teams wanted it. If you do not appreciate a scholarship from a D1 university, which allows you to pursue what you ”love”, then do not take it. If you don’t want to make the sacrifices for a scholarship, then do not take it. There are kids who will gladly take the scholarship seriously and will wear those four letters on their chest proudly. Lorenzo Mata, one of Howland’s ex-players from 2004-2008, was quoted on Sirius XM radio saying:

“We were all on the same page. We all wanted to win, the partying, we could have gone out and partied. But we all wanted to win. That’s what we were there for. To win and get an education. The guys who want to party now, they’re adults, they can make their own decisions. You really can’t stop them from doing what they wanna do.” ….. “Coach Howland can only do so much.”

When watching the current teams, you can certainly feel a sense of entitlement. My mother, a UCLA alumni and extreme fan, mentioned to me the guys back in “her day” used to cry after they lost. Seems like as of lately, losing is not only tolerated, it’s comfortable. The only way a program can be successful is if the players truly want it. They are the ones in practice, they are the ones playing on the court, and they are the ones determining how to spend their free time.

The types of problems mentioned in the article can be controlled by coaching, but at the end of the day, the player has to decide how he spends his time and learn to prioritize. That’s what all adults have to do.

We’ll see how the program responds.