UCLA Basketball to part ways with coach Steve Alford

The UCLA Athletic Department made official what was being reported last night. This morning, they announced that UCLA basketball coach Steve Alford is being relieved of his position.

The move brings an end to Alford’s five and half year stint with the UCLA basketball program. The team announced that assistant coach Murray Bartow will take over for the remainder of the season.

In the official statement put out by the athletic department, athletic director Dan Guerrero justified the move:

"“Throughout my career as an athletic director, I have maintained a belief that making a head coaching change during a season is rarely in the best interests of our student-athletes or program,” athletic director Dan Guerrero said in a statement. “In this case, however, it is now clear to me that what is best for our current students and for the overall good of the program, is to make this change now.”"

Guerrero was justified as the Bruins season has effectively bottomed out over their last two games before conference play.

The Bruins lost to Belmont at home, 74-72, on a last-second shot on December 15th. Things went from bad to worse as the Bruins lost to Liberty University this past Saturday in a 15-point blowout, again at home.

The loss was the Bruins’ fourth straight of the season, leaving them at 7-6 before they open Pac-12 play against Stanford this Thursday.

In his time with the Bruins, Alford was never able to return the Bruins to the heights that comes with the huge shadow cast by the John Wooden era.

Alford took the Bruins to the NCAA Tournament four out of the last five seasons but never got past the Sweet Sixteen.

His only success in conference came in his first year when he won the Pac-12 Tournament; the UCLA basketball Bruins never finished higher than third in the Pac-12 standings after that first year.

Alford’s shortcomings were more pronounced considering how much NBA talent he had in some of his teams. Players like Lonzo Ball, T.J. Leaf, Zach LaVine and Kyle Anderson were all first-round draft picks in the NBA and played for Alford.

The pressure is now on for Guerrero to find another high profile coach a year after firing the football coach. For a team with such a long and historic program that is no longer among the elites of college basketball, this may be Guerrero’s last chance to find someone to restore the Bruins program.