The UCLA Bruins. I’ve rooted for them as long as I can remember. Tracy Murray. Don MacLean. Legends of college basketball in my childhood.

I was in 7th grade and Tyus Edney went coast-to-coast. George Zidek ruled the paint and Ed O’Bannon was the second coming. Jim Harrick’s team was electrifying.

The UCLA faithful can get a scaled, toothy monkey off its back with a win tonight. By Leahcim506 at en.wikipedia, from Wikimedia Commons

Since Harrick left, UCLA basketball has fluctuated. During first actual game at Pauley Pavilion, I watched a Steve Lavin team beat top-ranked Kansas, led by Kirk Heinrich, Drew Gooden, Nick Collison, and Wayne Simien. UCLA’s ultra-talented team included Jerome Moiso, Cedric Bozeman, Matt Barnes, Jason Kapono, Ray Young, and Dijon Thompson. That UCLA team was supposed to be awesome. They made it to the Sweet 16 under head coach Steve Lavin that season, but could never get over the hump.

When Lavin’s results became untenable, Ben Howland was brought in. Howland led UCLA to two consecutive Final Four appearances. In both of them, they lost to Al Horford and Joakim Noah’s Florida Gators. After a downhill slide that culminated in a home loss to Cal Poly last year, Howland was fired.

Which brings us to Steve Alford, and tonight. In Howland’s shadow — and more importantly the shadow of the great John Wooden — Alford’s team will attempt to avenge the unfulfilled promise of those semi-recent Final Four teams. Florida is a consensus number one and Billy Donovan’s players have always seemed to have UCLA’s number in the past. If Alford’s group were to knock-off the SEC’s finest and get themselves to the Elite 8, the new coach’s first year at UCLA will have been an unmitigated success, and UCLA fans will get that monkey with huge teeth and scales, finally, off their back. Beware though, it will take more than a solid 8-clap tonight.