The larger issue?

I just went through UCLA’s basketball commitments during Ben Howland’s tenure, and this is what I found:

Out of the 20 verbal commitments since 2003-08 who would’ve had four years of eligibility through this year, only seven have stayed the full four years.

Here is the list: Lorenzo Mata, Josh Shipp, Darren Collison, Michael Roll, James Keefe, Nikola Dragovic, Jerime Anderson.

Four stayed three years: Arron Afflalo, Alfred Aboya, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Malcolm Lee.

Four stayed two years: Jordan Farmar, Ryan Wright, Russell Westbrook, J’mison Morgan.

Four stayed one year – Trevor Ariza, Kevin Love, Chase Stanback and Jrue Holliday – and Drew Gordon was gone early in his second year.

Then there are the classes 2009-11:
Tyler Honeycutt (two years), Reeves Nelson (2-plus years), Mike Moser (one year) and Matt Carlino (half year), with nine current players remaining, including four who transferred to UCLA from either a junior college or another four-year school.

So I know the math is funny, because with all the early exits, obviously the team has brought in more recruits than a typical team. But just based on “potential” four-year careers at UCLA – using the max eligibility time – here’s how I figure it works:

Out of 96 possible years of eligibility for the 24 recruited players from 2003-11 who are no longer with the team, they only stayed a combined 59.5 years.