UCLA Bruins: 2011-2012 Sports Wrap Up

With the baseball team’s loss to Florida State in the College World Series in Omaha, NE on June 19, which knocked them out of that tournament, the year, which essentially begins with the football season in September, officially ended for UCLA’s athletic program.

I wish I could say that it was a grand and glorious year filled with marvelous triumphs and national championships to add to the Bruins’ nation-leading 108, but with the exception of the women’s volleyball team, who captured the NCAA title in December, not only did numerous other teams like water polo, women’s gymnastics and, well, baseball reach the finals of their championships only to fall short, too many negative things happened with the high-profile, revenue producing sports to consider 2011-12 as satisfying – at least in my opinion.

In short, it was a bit disappointing overall.

In wrapping up this year in Westwood, let’s start with the positive and name a team of the year, which is a no-brainer as they were the only team on campus that won a national championship:

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

Led by second year head coach Mike Sealy, who took over for longtime coach Andy Banachowski, these Bruins had a banner year – literally – as they captured the program’s fourth NCAA title (seventh national title overall) and the school’s 108th by beating Illinois in San Antonio, ending with a 30-6 record.

Rachael Kidder  was the Most Outstanding Player in the tournament with her 20 kills in the final match, and the best part of it is that the 6′ 3″ outside hitter will return as a senior this fall, to hopefully help the Bruins avoid the “one hit wonder” syndrome and repeat.

OK, now that the positives have been accentuated, let’s go over 2011-12’s biggest disappointments, starting with:

FOOTBALL

In what ultimately turned out to be the last of Rick Neuheisel’s four-year run as the head man in Westwood, this football team’s season can best be described in a number of ways:

Frustrating

Disappointing

Underachieving

Pathetic

Inept, and…

Just plain bad at times.

How else could you describe a team that went 6-8 with several of the eight losses being of the blowout kind, including a humiliating 50-0 loss at the hands of sanction-crippled USC (Hey, that’s another good way to describe the Bruins’ season on the gridiron!) that was their worst loss to the Trojans since 1930 – 1930! – and ultimately sealed Neuheisel’s fate as he was sacked roughly 48 hours later.

Besides that 50-0 disaster in the Coliseum, the worst point of the season for me personally was when UCLA went down to the desert – Tucson, AZ to be precise – and made complete fools of themselves by not only getting whipped by a Arizona Wildcats squad that had just fired their coach and was under an interim one, they completely embarrassed themselves and Bruin Nation when several of the players got into a brawl with some of the Wildcats just before halftime, resulting in numerous suspensions among the wide receivers.

The fact that the Bruins made the inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game was a fluke, as Arizona State and Utah lost their last regular season battles to hand UCLA the right to be Oregon’s whipping boys in Eugene on a silver platter – though they did give a decent effort that night in a 49-31 loss.

By the time the Bruins played in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco, I was ready for the season to be over and wasn’t in the least surprised when they lost to Illinois 20-14.

As frustratingly sub-par as the season was, there was good news at the end of the day as UCLA decided to go in a new direction culture-wise by hiring hard-nosed NFL veteran Jim Mora to lead the team this fall. That they signed a recruiting class ranked in the top 15 wasn’t too shabby either, and gave everyone hope that better times will be ahead at the Rose Bowl.

Now that football’s been discussed, let’s go over the bad memories of UCLA’s highest profiled sport:

BASKETBALL

Unlike their gridiron counterparts, these Bruins were expected to achieve great things; being picked to win the Pac-12 Conference, ranked in the pre-season top 25, and having one of their key players on the cover of Sports Illustrated ‘s college basketball preview issue.

That particular key player – whose name will be mentioned in a bit – and that magazine would play a bigger role in UCLA’s season later on.

Looking back, I knew that the Bruins were in trouble and wouldn’t have such a good season after their first game, when they lost to lightly-regarded neighbor LMU on their way to a 2-5 start which they never really recovered from.

The two biggest issues of this past year on the hardcourt involved Reeves Nelson – UCLA’s leading scorer and all Pac-12 player who was featured on the Sports Illustrated cover – and the feature article by SI blew the lid off the Bruins’ cover and showed just how dysfunctional they were, portraying coach Ben Howland as a despotic dictator and Nelson as a flat-out punk who bullied teammates and staff and whose horrible attitude eventually got him kicked off the team after their loss to Texas at the Sports Arena in December, where UCLA was playing their home games while Pauley Pavilion was being renovated (it will reopen this fall).

With all of that turmoil, it was a wonder that the Bruins managed to finish with a winning record at 19-15 and an even bigger wonder, as well as a happy one, that in the spring Howland signed the nation’s second ranked recruiting class just behind NCAA champion Kentucky’s, led by Shabazz Muhammad, who was generally seen as the country’s best high school player.

Like the football team, a frustrating season ended in hope for these basketballers as they’re moving forward with top recruits, a new Pauley Pavilion, and a new attitude for 2012-2013.

Will the new school year see better times in Westwood?

As someone who’s a UCLA alumnus, I certainly hope so.