Mike Celizic

If someone told you that a team had one title to its name in 32 years, the first thing that came to your mind would not be, “Wow! Great program!” But if that same someone said that team’s name was UCLA, you’d suddenly decide the numbers don’t matter.

Such is the beauty of being considered a great program in sports. Once you’ve got the reputation, it doesn’t matter what you do. If you’re considered great in one era, you’re great forever.

So is it with the Bruins. By the time John Wooden won the last of his 10 titles in 1975, UCLA was considered to be the greatest program in the country for the very good reason that it was exactly that. And in the years that followed, if the team struggled, it wasn’t because it wasn’t a great program anymore. It was because the Bruins had hit a rough patch.

And when it finally won again under Jim Harrick 13 years ago, UCLA wasn’t a surprise team homing in on the excellence that had long since migrated to other parts of the country — mostly the East and Southeast. It was the legendary program returning to its rightful seat of glory.

It’s not that UCLA has been awful for 32 years. In all but five of those seasons, the Bruins have gone to the NCAA tournament and even got to the title game four times, winning it in 1995 under Harrick. But, while the program was very good at times and just decent at others, it has always been great in the minds of the public.

In sports, that which we call a rose by any other name would not smell nearly as sweet. Say “Florida” and sports fans think “football.” Even if you remind them that the Gators won the last two basketball titles back-to-back, which has been done only a handful of times in NCAA history, the opinion doesn’t change. Florida is a football school, not a hoops factory.

In sports, some names are just magic. Notre Dame hasn’t won a football championship in 20 years and since that one it’s been on occasion fairly good and usually merely average to dreadful, and yet it’s still considered one of the most glorious football programs in the nation.

Even kids who never experienced the glory days know UCLA is one of the great programs. The idea has been drilled into them from when they were young along with all the other personalities and legends that the sports shows and writers are always talking about. If you’ve been hearing since the day you first watched SportsCenter that UCLA is a legendary basketball school — or Notre Dame is a great football school — it seeps in and sticks with you.

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Just the same, even programs living on their history need to return to glory now and then to keep the legend alive.

That’s why what Ben Howland has done since leaving Pittsburgh and taking over from Steve Lavin in 2003-04 is so significant far beyond the UCLA campus. He’s taken the Bruins to the Final Four for three straight seasons, the first coach to do that since Wooden retired. In the process, he’s breathed new life into the legend.

Howland’s problem is that what’s good for the program isn’t necessarily good for him. Bruins fans are delighted with what he’s done, and they’re acting as if the 33 years since Wooden left never actually happened — except for that one championship season. But he’s never going to be worthy of being a great UCLA coach until he wins a title.

Coming close works for a while, but if you’re going to coach at a program that claims to be one of the greatest ever, sooner or later you’ve got to be the last program standing at season’s end. At Pitt, Howland could have stayed for decades without ever winning a title and, if he’d snagged just one, he could have been coach-for-life — like Jim Boeheim at Syracuse.

But at UCLA, he doesn’t have that luxury. If he’s going to keep going to the Final Four, he’d just better win one. Only that will make him a coach worthy of the franchise. Another one or two after that will qualify him for greatness.

Howland’s been fortunate so far in that he’s lost to teams that have been seen as being better than his. But this year, if he gets to the final game, he’s not going to get the benefit of that doubt. This year, the perception is that his Bruins are right up there with Roy Williams’ Tar Heels. If he loses this year, it’s going to be on him.

But it won’t be on the program. The UCLA brand is as secure now as it’s ever been. In the minds of its fans, the reason it’s won only once in 32 years is because its coaches let it down.

Get to the Final Four at Pitt but lose the title, and you’re a great coach who overcame a humble program. Do the same at UCLA, and you’ve let down a great program and joined the list of coaches who couldn’t live up to the standards set by John Wooden.

If Howland doesn’t know that now, let him get knocked out of the Final Four early again. It doesn’t matter how it happens, it’s going to be his fault.

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