December brings a March Madness feel to T-Mobile Arena

So maybe LaVar Ball isn’t crazy, after all.

It’s December and conference play has yet to commence, so any guarantee of a national championship in college basketball holds the significance of choosing between black and brown dress socks.

Especially when the prophecy comes from the father of a team’s star player.

But if it’s not certain UCLA will win the school’s record 12th title and first since 1995, this is: The Bruins are absolutely good enough.

In one week, T-Mobile Arena played host to four programs that could cut down nets in Arizona come April, offering just days before Christmas the sort of electric atmosphere more reserved for Sweet 16 or Elite Eight games.

If the NCAA rightly drops its hypocritical and antiquated stance about not allowing championship play to be staged in Las Vegas, the scene over the past seven days more than proved how tournament games would look and be supported here.

It was beyond impressive.

Duke pounded UNLV on Dec. 10, and the CBS Sports Classic was featured Saturday, when No. 2 UCLA won its 12th straight to open the season by dismissing Ohio State 86-73.

That was followed by No. 6 Kentucky surviving No. 7 North Carolina 103-100, a game with the intensity and skill level of a Final Four, during which a majority of the 19,298 in attendance were staunch supporters of Big Blue Nation.

Lexington must be a sleepy town those days the Wildcats are on the road, because it seemed as though most of the second largest city in Kentucky were here to cheer wildly as Malik Monk scored 47 points, the most by a player against North Carolina since 1970.

Kentucky and its sensational freshman know all about UCLA, having lost to the Bruins at home 97-92 on Dec. 3, when the nation saw firsthand the level of rejuvenation that has occurred in Steve Alford’s fourth season as coach in Westwood.

It has been proven time and again that great guard play wins in March, and the Bruins are elite and deep with those who handle and pass and shoot from the perimeter. Lonzo Ball, freshman point guard and son to the LaVar the Prognosticator, directs what is an offense that is exciting and incredibly difficult to guard.

The Bruins are just really fun to watch, is all.

UCLA isn’t a great defensive team — it’s not even a very good one yet — but I’m not sure how many nights it needs to be. That’s how quickly scoring runs come for a side averaging 97.0 points, how fast the Bruins can extend a margin, how many capable options for points exist.

“I know what I have,” Alford said. “I’ve got a really good group of guys to coach, but they’re a pretty good basketball team right now. We’re trying to become a great basketball team, and that’s a process. That’s a journey.

“We have a real knack for figuring things out. Whatever we end up re-emphasizing or focusing on, this team just, there’s just a trust factor there. It’s a surreal group. The IQ they have to play the game is at a high level, and that’s fun to coach.”

It’s a team built for a serious run in March, a mixture of veterans and talented freshmen, interchangeable parts, one that can be as deadly from 3-point range as it is efficient finishing around the basket, which it does as well as most nationally.

Alford finished the game Saturday with a lineup that included four guards in Ball, seniors Isaac Hamilton and Bryce Alford, and sophomore Aaron Holiday, all with varying strengths that make getting a defensive stop when one is needed overly difficult. That doesn’t even count freshman forward T.J. Leaf, who leads the team in scoring (17.8) and is second in rebounding (9.3).

“First and foremost, it’s balance,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “You look throughout the course of this game, and there were several times where different guys kind of went on a run, and that’s a great thing to have. You don’t know who it is, but you know it’s coming. The hard part is, it just keeps coming.”

This wasn’t the best UCLA, and yet it still outrebounded the bigger Buckeyes by 10 and shot 48 percent. It’s not even the healthiest UCLA, given starting center and leading rebounder Thomas Welch missed his third straight game while nursing a bruised knee.

But it showed enough to think LaVar Ball’s prediction after just the season’s fifth game could prove correct.

It doesn’t mean UCLA will win it all, just that it’s good enough.

Just that it could.

So can Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina, all of whom made T-Mobile home for a few hours the past week.

One day, the venue might host a Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

It already has the electric atmosphere part down pat.

Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.