Freshman stars fit right in
Memphis' Rose and UCLA's Love stepped into established lineups and made their teams better.
Kevin Love grew up preparing to be a star.
"As a kid, even 10, 11 years old, Kevin was the pied piper," said his father, Stan. "It's his personality. People just follow Kevin."
The 19-year-old UCLA freshman center, already Pacific 10 Conference player of the year and first-team All-American, has also become a plain-speaking locker room leader unafraid to criticize veteran teammates for fouling out (Darren Collison) or not passing enough (Josh Shipp). He's even offered Coach Ben Howland advice (more touches, coach, give me more touches).
When UCLA (35-3) plays Memphis (37-1) at 3 p.m. Saturday in the first of two NCAA semifinals in San Antonio, Love will be opposing another specially talented freshman.
Tigers point guard Derrick Rose also arrived to a team filled with talented veterans. Junior guard Chris Douglas-Roberts joined Love on the Associated Press All-American first team -- Rose was on the third team with Collison -- and Joey Dorsey and Robert Dozier were key players on the Memphis team that lost, 50-45, to UCLA in a 2006 regional final.
Besides Love's impish personality there is prodigious basketball talent, a kind of physical strength that Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim says he hasn't seen even in an NBA player, a kind of natural basketball "feel" that Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar says he envies, and a work ethic that Love's personal coach, Chris Dudley, says "would make an average athlete almost great and a great athlete something else."
And yet Love came to a UCLA team this year that had, besides Collison and Shipp, junior forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who had already started on two Final Four teams, and sophomore guard Russell Westbrook, who was whispered about all summer as a rising star who might be the best player UCLA had and its most promising NBA candidate.
"It's always a little delicate at first when you bring in the new guy," Ohio State Coach Thad Matta said.
Before last season, Matta welcomed to Columbus center Greg Oden, who would become the overall No. 1 NBA draft pick, as well as lottery pick Michael Conley to a team with two highly regarded upperclassmen -- junior Jamar Butler and senior Ivan Harris, who had been a McDonald's High School All-American.
"Kids today are smart," Matta said. "If you brought in freshmen that were all about themselves it might not work. One of the first things Greg did was tell the team, 'Look, I'm going to let my playing do the talking.' The kid can't help it if he's on a magazine cover or all over TV. That's just the nature of life now."
