UCLA: Analyzing the Bruins March Madness Draw

Get your tap shoes on, UCLA fans – the Bruins are officially going to the Dance.

Though the bid was a formality, the UCLA men’s basketball team officially received the invite to the NCAA Tournament in the form of a number three seed in the South region.

After a narrow win against USC followed by a shellacking versus Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament, the seed is an accurate assessment of where the pundits projected the Bruins to be for the majority of the season.

The Bruins have an advantage that their pod in the South Regional will take place at the Golden Center in Sacramento, where they will play against Kent State, the 14-seed in the bracket. The game will tip off roughly 30 minutes after the conclusion of Cincinnati’s game, which starts at 4:27 p.m. PDT.

The bracket is not only difficult, it is historical – the top three seeds, North Carolina, Kentucky and UCLA, rank 1-2-3 in all-time Final Four appearances.  In addition, each team spent the majority of the year in the top ten of the NCAA rankings. Legendary Kentucky coach John Calipari

Legendary Kentucky coach John Calipari calls the bracket “murderers row,” and that he can not “remember a couple brackets tougher than” this South regional, a sentiment echoed by astute observers of the sport.

So what is the outlook for UCLA? First, let’s examine why the Bruins, ranked third in the final regular season poll, received a three seed. They finished third in their conference. Their all-important RPI ranking was 16th.

Perhaps most glaring, their strength of schedule (SoS), was 78th, and a woeful 259th out of conference. Combine those factors, along with the unimpressive final two games in the conference tournament, and they are probably right where they deserve to be as the number three.

As far as their chances to advance, it is a pretty safe bet that they defeat Kent State, who finished 22-13, good for fourth place in the MAC. They exploded in their postseason, winning the conference tournament, and can put some points on the board – as evidenced by their 116-106 victory over Central Michigan in the MAC playoff.

This is their first postseason appearance in nine years

This is their first postseason appearance in nine years, and they only shoot 31.9% from three-point land. If you are going to beat the Bruins, you need to shoot the basketball and they simply do not have the firepower to do so.

In the second round, assuming the Bruins win, they compete to get to the Sweet Sixteen against the winner of Cincinnati or Kansas St. vs. Wake Forest. Cincinnati is physical and tough, but does not put enough points on the board to compete with UCLA.

Kansas State was 8-10 in the Big 12 and does not have the pedigree to pose a real threat; head coach Bruce Weber’s job security was a real concern as recently as a week ago as the Wildcats lost eight of ten games in the middle of the conference season.

The Deamon Deacons, on the other hand, are sneaky – one of the “last four” in the tournament, Wake Forest has the seventh-highest offensive efficiency in the nation, scoring 120.0 points per 100 possessions. Fortunately for Bruin fans, UCLA places third in the same metric.

From there, it would be on to Memphis, where the Bruins would likely find themselves in a rematch against Kentucky. The catapult for the UCLA season occurred in Rupp Arena in early December, when the Bruins led wire-to-wire against the heavily favored Wildcats, ending their 42-game home winning streak.

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Kentucky is coached by John Calipari and has his typical cadre of blue-chip talent, so this battle of college basketball blue-bloods will likely be determined by will, guile and ability. It is difficult to defeat a program the caliber of Kentucky twice in one season, but the Wildcats had five losses on the season, one more than UCLA.

If seedings hold, the top-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels would face the Bruins in the final contest prior to the Final Four. North Carolina is an eminently beatable team, accruing seven losses against 27 wins during the season, including two to a lower-seeded Duke team.

They are led by junior guard Joel Berry (15.1 ppg) and forward Justin Jackson (18.3 ppg), and may, frankly, be over-seeded due to the program’s pedigree and the fact that they were national runners-up last season, where they lost to Villanova in the championship game.

Next: USC Makes Field of 68

UCLA will need to play their best against the elite programs in the nation to advance out of the Group of Death. With Lonzo Ball, TJ Leaf and Bryce Alford leading the team into Sacramento, it will take an all-conference – and All-America – performance by each player to vault the Bruins back into their first Final Four since three straight appearances under Ben Howland from 2006-2008.