Wishing a Happy New Year to all. Welcome to 2019.
For a lot of people following the sport of college basketball, Steve Alford is hardly considered a sympathetic figure. (Ask Iowa fans their thoughts on him). And no one will shed tears for a millionaire coach receiving a seven-figure buyout to leave a job.
The expectations of the UCLA job also are well-known by anyone even close to the sport. It’s a place that ever since John Wooden’s retirement in 1975 has chewed up even outstanding coaches and spit them out, for the main sin of their not being John Wooden.
And still, no matter what way one cuts it or what justifications are made for it, his firing as UCLA head coach in the middle of a season still stinks.
UCLA made official on Monday what was being reported Sunday night, firing Alford in his sixth season there after a 7-6 start. The move came after the Bruins’ fourth straight loss on Saturday, an ugly 15-point defeat against a Liberty team better than most know that nonetheless picked up easily its highest-profile win of the season.
There’s hardly been a peep of protest about the move, the sentiment presumably that Alford deserved it for losses to Belmont and Liberty or because his team was judged to underachieve.
There’s no question that Alford’s teams regularly left many wanting for more. If this season had continued to its conclusion on the current path, it would’ve been somewhat more understandable to make a move, even though this was a 31-win team just 1 1/2 years ago.
Yet for as much as we hear about student-athlete well-being, one has to wonder just how firings like this in the middle of the season fit into it.
Looking at this from one angle, UCLA administration essentially quit on this season to satisfy a few loud voices looking for blood. More directly, it quit on the team’s student-athletes, in a season that had some major monkey wrenches thrown into it with season-ending injuries before it even started, but which there still was and is plenty to play for in a Pac-12 that is still there for anyone’s taking.
In fact, the silence from those who supposedly are so concerned about student-athlete well-being is deafening in cases like this. We’re regularly told-quite loudly, in fact-that student-athletes choose a school for the head coach.
If that’s the case, shouldn’t firing a coach in the middle of the season be downright infuriating to those who profess to be protectors of the athletes? Or is paying players somehow the only solution to caring for student-athletes?
There is another side of this, with some rumblings that Alford had supposedly lost his team and was even ‘hated’ by his players, per at least one report yesterday.
If this is true-and we’ll qualify it with a very heavy if-then the players on this year’s team-many of them presumably on their way to playing professionally-need to be asked how Kobe Bryant would have put up with teammates giving a halfhearted effort against Liberty for petty reasons. Or how long do they think they would last with Stephen Curry or LeBron James when behaving like that?
Short of him doing a player bodily harm, team dissent should not have played any role in Alford’s early ouster. And so, this was a perfect opportunity for administration with some spine to give all those apparently future NBA All-Stars some guidance.
A clear declaration by athletic director Dan Guerrero that Alford was not going anywhere for at least the rest of the season, would’ve sent the message that the inmates aren’t running this asylum, and the players better get started on figuring out a way to act like professionals before they soon become pros.
The early firing doesn’t change anything for the future, and UCLA will continue on the same path it has been on for years. The Bruins job will be loaded with potential, still one of the highest-profile gigs in the sport. The next coach might fulfill that and challenge for national titles, or he might do a job like an Alford or Steve Lavin, still better than most schools, but not enough to satisfy at a job where it is almost impossible to satisfy.
It certainly changed the path of this year’s team. UCLA administration threw in the towel on this year, and no matter what the Bruins and interim coach Murry Bartow do the rest of the way short of a national championship probably doesn’t matter. If one truly cares about student-athletes, that should bother them.
Side Dishes:
- Virginia pounded Marshall 100-64, with Kyle Guy scoring 30 points. This was a drubbing, the Cavaliers scored like the Thundering Herd are typically expected to score. We’re not sure how UVA continues to sit behind several one-loss teams in the national rankings, and on the other end Marshall is really struggling.
- A couple overtime surprises with the road teams winning. Hartford slipped past Boston College 79-78 on the road, the Hawks’ second win over the Eagles in the last three years. Big win to hang the hat on for John Gallagher’s team, which was a preseason favorite in the America East, got off to a rough start but is experienced and should contend in the America East. Meanwhile, B.C. lost despite 44 points from Ky Bowman, who was outstanding but needed some help.
- Also, Monmouth upset Pennsylvania 76-74 at the Palestra, the Hawks’ first win in 13 games. Monmouth is not as bad as its 1-12 record shows, and in fact in a way-down Metro Atlantic they have a fighting chance to be an upper-division team.
- NJIT won at Duquesne 78-67. The Highlanders are now an impressive 12-3 and along with Lipscomb and Liberty are going to make for a very good race in the Atlantic Sun this year.
- Creighton won at Providence 79-68 for its first road win of the season. The Bluejays weren’t great from the field but made 13 of 29 from three while also holding PC to 40.7% shooting for the game.
- Big Sky play entered round two and both Montana and Weber State are among the 2-0 teams after the Grizzlies toppled Southern Utah 89-76 and Weber won at Idaho 93-87.
- Finally, Gonzaga blew out Cal State Bakersfield 89-54, with Rui Hachimura scoring 22 to lead the Zags, who were surprisingly outrebounded slightly (38-36) but otherwise dominated per usual.
Today’s Menu:
- It’s a very light schedule with just six games. It starts with a New Year’s Day-day worthy game on the gridiron in many years, with Notre Dame at Virginia Tech (1 p.m. Eastern, ESPNU). First one to hit 20 three-pointers wins.
- The biggest game has nationally ranked Marquette at St. John’s (7 p.m. ,FS1). The Johnnies are still stewing from the finish of their loss to Seton Hall on Saturday.
- Winthrop is at Florida State. Don’t count out the Eagles as a contender in the Big South, and they could cause FSU some trouble, having been competitive in all four of their losses.
- Cal State Northridge goes to San Diego State, which no doubt should be motivated after being blown out at home by Brown of the Ivy League on Saturday.
- Also out west, Cal State Fullerton goes to Washington. It likely won’t be pretty, but the Huskies have a knack for pulling out games like this the last two years.
Again, Happy New Year and a happy eighth day of Christmas too. Enjoy the bowl games.
Twitter: @HoopvilleAdam
