All this success is not happening too fast for Nikki Caldwell.
She still has her bearings.
Her UCLA women’s basketball team may be ranked for the first time in four years, winners of six straight and ten of 11, and with the No. 2 seed for the Pac-10 tournament locked up.
This may be only her second season at the helm.
This may be her first head coaching gig.
Yet she’s not surprised.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Caldwell said, not so much smugly but with certainty, on the eve of UCLA’s matchup with visiting Arizona State at 7 p.m. tonight. “When I took over this program, the cupboard wasn’t bare. We had great guard play, which we still do. We had size. Great shooters. I felt good about where we were at when I first got here.”
Still, the rise has been quick.
UCLA went from 16 wins in 2007 to 19 wins in Caldwell’s second year. The 20 wins this year heading into the last home stand of the regular season are the most since a 21-win season in 2005-06.
And Bruins are doing it with one player ranked in top-20 in Pac-10 scoring, sophomore Jasmine Dixon.
“You don’t have to be the most talented team to become the most successful team,” Caldwell said. “You’ve got to have all the qualities of being great teammates. Our philosophy is real simple, when we say buy into the system, it’s really about buying into each other.”
And the Bruins do.
Caldwell hijacked the philosophy from her mentor and former coach at the University of Tennessee, the legendary Pat Summit. But Summit wasn’t only her coach, she was her boss.
Those six years with the Volunteers helped fill in all the small gaps she overlooked as a player and it highlighted the important qualities that every successful basketball team needs.
Maybe just the one quality: unselfishness.
“Coming from (Tennessee) and being under one of the greatest coaches, I know you win with people,” Caldwell said. “They’ve got to win with each other; once you get that attitude toward the system and the philosophy. Help-side defense is a prime example of if your team is united. Making the extra pass – that’s a quality you possess because you buy into each other. Let somebody else take the best shot for the team.”
She saw the unselfishness first when her entire squad chose to commit early last summer, every player taking the third session of summer school together.
“That allowed them to work out together, to weight train together, to get to know each
other,” Caldwell said. “They were formulating a special bond in the offseason, and it carried itself over into the season. I got a glimpse of it when they made that commitment initially.”
Caldwell isn’t stupid, though.
She’s knows major college basketball isn’t always smiles and roses.
At some point, to take the next step, she’ll need a superstar.
Unlike the men’s college game, where one or two spunky teams with a rag-tag bunch of scrap-heap players may make a run to the top, women’s teams typically need at least one superstar.
“When it’s all said and done, just looking back on the championships I’ve been affiliated with, you had that Wade Trophy winner on your squad,” Caldwell said. “You had a Daedra Charles, a Candace Parker. UConn, with Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore. You do need that thoroughbred on that roster.”
But not yet. Not yet.
“We will continue to recruit the best players in the country who fit in our program,” Caldwell said. “But I do think you can be consistent and field a top-25, top-15 team with role players. You can mix and matchup. That’s the thing, that’s the key – we’ve got post players that play like guards.”
What’s she’s saying is they can surprise some people.