Basketball Kaleidoscope: Bruins to hang a banner?

Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated was in Memphis to see the Tigers battle Tennessee in a 1-vs.-2 match-up. Afterward, he reflected on the upcoming NCAA Tournament:

There’s only a small pack of legitimate title hopefuls: Tennessee, UCLA, North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Memphis and Texas. Our national champion won’t come from outside that group because the drop-off to the crowd that includes the rulers of the Big East (Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame and Uconn) and Big Ten (Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana) is too big. Of the seven contenders, none has the mix of athleticism and quality depth that the Volunteers do. But if I were to fill out a bracket today, I’d be inclined to set up a Tennessee-UCLA title game with the Bruins winning, for three reasons:

• Much of UCLA’s roster already has either one or two Final Fours under its belt.

• Florida, the only team the Bruins have ever seemed to cower and hide from, is finally out of the picture.

• The lone UCLA starter without Final Four experience, Kevin Love, gives them an interior dimension that the Vols simply do not have.

On another matter, John Canzano of The Oregonian -– he who famously ran afoul of Colleen Bellotti in the Autzen Stadium press box last season -– wrote a very interesting column on Love and his quiet work with some kids at Nickerson Gardens in Southern California.

His column also included this:

No, Love's not coming back to UCLA for another year.

Get that straight now.

His father Stan said Friday, "Kevin doesn't really talk about it, he doesn't really think about it, he doesn't want the whole NBA thing to be a distraction, but I can tell there's some pressure on him."

Understand, Love is a certain NBA lottery pick, which means a guaranteed three-year multimillion-dollar contract, which means that everyone, including his coach, Ben Howland, knows that Love's college experience will amount to less than a full calendar year. So yeah, welcome to Kevin Love's life -- the inner-city pipedream.

As we have noted previously, if Love is a lottery (top 14) pick -– and many mock drafts have him at 18-20 right now – he will certainly go. If not, it’s our opinion that he’ll be about 50-50 to stay another year and be a top-10 pick.