Bracketology Busters: Beware the Bruins

Each week, ESPN's Joe Lunardi predicts the NCAA tournament field if the season ended today. While he's good at this, Lunardi only focuses on past performance, and wins and losses. Bracketology Busters looks at which teams should be expected to perform significantly better or worse than their projected seeds.

This week we'll look at a team that's seen their perception drop after a great three-year stretch, but is primed to make yet another late season run.

UCLA | Current Seed: 5 | Status: Underrated

One of the great things about the NCAA tournament is that what you did in past years is completely irrelevant. Despite three consecutive Final Four berths, the Bruins find themselves on just the fifth line of Joe Lunardi's current bracket. UCLA is second in the Pac-10 standings, but at 11-5 is two games behind Washington. That, along with the weak non-conference resume, explains the relatively low seed.

Despite what the standings may suggest, the Bruins have actually been the best team in the conference thus far. They have a slight lead on the Huskies in scoring margin, and they've played the most difficult schedule possible in the Pac- 10. They host Oregon State and Oregon, the two worst teams in the conference, in their final two regular season games. That means they're a near lock to both finish an entirely respectable 13-5 in the league, and lead the league in scoring margin, a much better predictor of future success than won-lost record.

UCLA's latest loss, and the one that seemed to cause most people to lose faith, was at home to Washington State last Saturday. But really, that's not a particularly bad loss; it was only by one point, and the Cougars went on to sweep the Arizona schools this past weekend. The Bruins bounced back from that loss pretty well themselves, beating Stanford and Cal on the road. They would've taken 2-1 over that three-game stretch any day of the week.

The smart guys in Las Vegas certainly haven't lost confidence in Ben Howland's crew. Even after the loss to Wazzu, they were favored by five against the Cardinal, and then 2.5 against the then 21-7 Bears. Those numbers square up almost perfectly with the predictions derived from Ken Pomeroy's ratings, and he has them as the ninth best team in the entire country.



With two games they should win to end the regular season, followed by the Pac-10 tournament near home at the Staples Center, the Bruins have a chance to enter the Big Dance with a seven-game winning streak for the third time in four years. But while they hope the results are the same, UCLA has certainly gotten things done differently this year.

In each of their three Final Four years, Howland's Bruins have finished in the top three in the nation in adjusted Defensive Efficiency. The Bruins had a reputation for stifing D, and it was very much deserved. But this season they've dropped to 47th in the country; losing Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and block machine Lorenzo Mata-Real will have that effect.

Fortunately, the offense has stepped it up, ascending all the way to third in the nation in offensive efficiency. Darren Collison has had an absurdly good season, shooting 92 percent, 58 percent, and 42 percent on free throws, twos, and threes, respectively. Fellow senior Josh Shipp has improved his three-point stroke, up to 42 percent from last year's 32 percent, and freshman Jrue Holiday has been very effective from inside the arc.

No, UCLA isn't quite as good as in years past. They've seen too much talent depart for that to be realistic. But they're still one of the top-10 teams in the country, and are certainly going to be a tougher out than fellow projected No. 5 seeds LSU, Marquette, and Xavier.