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By Dylan Hernandez

Daily Bruin Contributor

He can look up and down his roster and, for better or worse, take credit for the collection of names he sees.

For the first time in his six-year tenure as the UCLA men’s basketball team’s head coach, Lavin has a team he built, one with plenty of veterans he himself recruited.

It’s true that Jerome Moiso – three years into the NBA and already a journeyman - and JaRon Rush – not even in the NBA – would be on this year’s team had it not been for their ill-advised decisions to leave school early. But considering the rate at which top players – okay, even mediocre ones – are departing college basketball for the NBA, such losses have to be accepted.

And Lavin, for his part, rarely mentions that Moiso and Rush could be playing for him this year. He doesn’t have to lament the losses. He has plenty on his roster to be content about – four seniors and one junior, among them four returning starters. It’s Lavin’s most experienced team since his 1996-97 squad, which he instructed as a first-year head coach.

If Lavin had wanted to, he could have had a fifth senior, Ray Young, on his squad. But Lavin, observing that Young would have received little playing time due to the depth of the team, elected to redshirt the guard instead.

These veterans on UCLA’s team – seniors Matt Barnes, Dan Gadzuric, Billy Knight and Rico Hines, and junior Jason Kapono – were recruited by Lavin, have played under Lavin for some time and understand Lavin’s system. They even talk like him, using the same clichés he does (i.e. “one game at a time”).

These are Lavin’s boys, all right.

“The maturity and leadership that those juniors and seniors provide are the best things we have going for us,” Lavin said.

That could be true, especially on this team, which lost last year’s captain, Earl Watson, to graduation and has so many youngsters – four true freshmen, two redshirt freshmen, and two sophomores.

“It’ been great,” Lavin said. “It’s like having built-in extra assistant coaches on the floor. They provide great leadership, direction and insight for our younger players.”

The most vocal of these veterans is Hines, a shooting guard who has had trouble shooting so far this season. But despite his inability to put the ball into the basket, Hines has managed to contribute offensively, setting effective picks and vocally directing traffic. He has also become the surrogate big brother to some of the team’s youngsters.

“He has great energy, a passion to compete,” Lavin said. “It can rub off on other players.”

“Rico’s definitely the leader,” freshman forward Andre Patterson said. “If we mess up, he lets us know.”

Knight, Patterson continued, is the team’s silent leader. Knight, UCLA’s other fifth-year senior and starting two-guard, shrugs off any such praise. It’s only his job, he says.

“If young guys get frustrated, they should ask us questions,” Knight said. “I remember that in my freshman year, seniors didn’t talk much to the freshmen.”

Then there’s UCLA’s best player, Kapono, who didn’t enter last year’s NBA draft and returned to Westwood. Good-natured and rather humorous, he seems to be well-liked by his teammates.

“Players like Jason Kapono keep you relaxed,” said freshman point guard Cedric Bozeman, who, like Kapono, plans to remain a Bruin for more than a couple of seasons. “He tells you to make plays, to be free. That kind of leadership from a guy like Jason Kapono is key.”

“Kapono is like a senior, he’s played so much,” Lavin said. “He has a lot of maturity, and I’ve seen it in practice.”

Gadzuric and Barnes, in their own subtle ways, take part in passing down knowledge as well.

“It’s a committee thing,” Hines said of the leadership on the team. “I do a lot of talking because I talk a lot. Billy and the other guys set great examples.”

According to Patterson, Bozeman and Dijon Thompson – the three true freshman who will see significant playing time this year – the collective tutoring efforts of the upperclassmen have made their transition from the high school game to college game easier.

“They go out of their way to teach me all of the tricks to the plays,” Patterson said.

Knight, however, says that getting the freshmen to listen to Lavin, and not teaching old tricks, is the biggest responsibility he has as an leader on the team.

“I’m helping them out with listening,” Knight said. “If Coach tells them something, sometimes they don’t listen. In high school, they were ‘the man’ on their teams and they’re not used to listening to anybody.”

And how are the freshmen doing so far?

“I like the way the freshmen have responded to the leadership and direction,” Lavin said. “There’s good camaraderie and chemistry. The younger players respect the upperclassmen. The older players enjoy mentoring the younger players on walking down that path they’ve already been down. It’s a good sign.”

It’s a sign Lavin hasn’t seen before. Perhaps it could lead to something.

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