Schedule Wasn’t Soft, After All

In the end, after all the comments from fans and the digs from the media about a soft schedule, UCLA earned its spot in the NCAA tournament against one of the toughest slates in the country.

Thirteen of the 30 games were against tournament-bound opponents, seven of which were wins and four of which were versus eventual top-seeded teams, Stanford and Arizona. Most of the abuse came early--home games against Iona, Fairfield and Morgan State, a spot among the weak field of the Pearl Harbor Classic--but the rest of the nonconference schedule included DePaul, Gonzaga, Pepperdine, Purdue, North Carolina and Syracuse, all of which made the field of 64. Iona did as well.

“It’s not really a vindication, I just didn’t understand it,” Coach Steve Lavin said of the criticism that the Bruins could not become conference-ready with so many soft opponents early. “I knew we were going to play one of the top five schedules in the country, if not the toughest schedule in the country.

“As a coach, vindication isn’t a factor. I just knew that was going to play into our favor if we could play good basketball.”

Strength of schedule became one of the main selling points that landed the Bruins in the tournament, and that might have gotten them an invitation even without the Stanford win and at least 18 victories.

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Earl Watson, Jerome Moiso and Jason Kapono shared the Coach John Wooden Award as the team MVP. Kapono was also given the Seymour Armond Memorial Award as the most valuable freshman and the Bob (Ace) Calkins Memorial Award for free-throw shooting.

The other honors given Monday night at the annual Bruin banquet: the Elvin C. (Ducky) Drake Award for competitive spirit, inspiration and unselfish contributions to Billy Knight; the Bruin Hoopsters J.D. Morgan Memorial Award for outstanding team play to Rico Hines; the UCLA Alumni Assn. Award for academic achievement and team contribution to Sean Farnham; the Bruin Bench Basketball Award for improvement in play and mental attitude to Ryan Bailey; and the Irv Pohlmeyer Memorial Award for outstanding defensive player to Ray Young.