Could UCLA Be A Bubble Team?

UCLA has made the news the last week or two with a ridiculous series of small injuries. They're now up to six injured players. The most recent injured player, J'Mison Morgan, should be back before the first regular season game. In fact, there's a decent chance that all six players will be back before their first regular season game. But I'm still worried, because in some ways little injuries are worse than big injuries, as silly as that sounds.

Obviously a major injury like an ACL tear is a horrible thing to happen to a player. But those tend to be fluke plays that strike at random, and there's nothing you can do about them. Little injuries on the other hand... everybody has little injuries. If you're a Division I athlete, you're going to have minor injuries just about all the time, and generally you can play through them. Occasionally a minor injury takes down a player for a few weeks, such as Tyler Hansbrough's shin injury last fall, but when a team has six of these at the same time it's a sign that there's a cultural problem at the school. Sure, there's some chance that six players really just did have fluke injuries in a short period of time, but there's also a chance that there is a lack of leadership and cohesion.

The fact is that this is probably the weakest senior class that UCLA has had in a long time. James Keefe has been a real disappointment (even one year ago UCLA fans had him pegged as the next Kevin Love), and Nikola Dragovic and Michael Roll are both role players. All three of these guys would be quality reserves on an elite team, but do you really see any team starting those three players winning the Pac-10? Not a chance. And the junior class at UCLA? It doesn't exist: they have no scholarship juniors.

Ben Howland is going to have to rely heavily on his young players. Drew Gooden, Malcolm Lee, J'Mison Morgan and Jerime Anderson were all big recruits in 2008, and all got some time on the floor last year off the bench. The 2009 recruiting class also includes a couple of blue chippers: Mike Moser and Tyler Honeycutt. Anthony Stover, Brendan Lane and Reeves Nelson are the other 2009-10 freshmen, although I wouldn't bet on those three getting a lot of playing time.

That adds up to six freshmen and sophomores who are blue chip talents and can all play extended time. Those six, along with Keefe, Dragovic and Roll, will probably make up the nine man rotation. But who is the leader? Who is the star? UCLA under Ben Howland has always had not just blue chip recruits, but elite NBA Lottery Pick talent. I don't see where that is right now.

And when you've got six very young player who will get extended time, they need leadership. Keefe, Dragovic and Roll haven't proved it on the floor, so maybe they are struggling to keep this team together and positive. The six small injuries thus far certainly are not a good sign.

Right now I've still got UCLA as a seven seed, but we won't have any sense of how accurate that is until their first exhibition game on November 4th. If one of these young players doesn't step up and become the next Darren Collison or Alfred Aboya, it's not out of the question that UCLA will fall all the way to the bubble.