Final push of Bryce Alford's rocky UCLA career is going smoothly

LOS ANGELES --Bryce Alford, a critical UCLA shooting guard in Friday's NCAA tournament Sweet 16 affair against Kentucky in Memphis, Tennessee, strolled into Pauley Pavilion on a mild winter afternoon with a confident stride and relaxed presence.

He's a young man living the life in Los Angeles. Maybe that's why a portion of the UCLA fan base despised him in the past.

His father, Steve Alford, is a millionaire and controversial head coach of his team. Bryce drives a nice car he calls his "stallion." Former UCLA star Russell Westbrook comes to Bruins games and cheers for him.

His girlfriend is a model. A real model. Through social media, he posts pics of his Jordan shoes and videos of his kayaking trips and day-long offseason treks to the West Coast's stress-curing beaches.

It's as if he's inviting the haters to abhor his redemption and spoils. Imagine Zack Morris with Instagram.

But Zack Morris never played point guard at UCLA, where Bryce Alford acted as an extension of his father and endured much criticism in the first three years of his career.

The 44th-ranked point guard in the 2013 class, per RecruitingNation, will enter Friday's matchup against Kentucky, however, as a key piece to a reinvigorated team that's now the most exciting product in the collegiate game.

Lonzo Ball's arrival allowed Bryce to move from an unnatural point guard role to a complementary, off-ball position, where he now averages 15.6 points, second on the team, and connects on 82 percent of his free throws and 43 percent of his 3-pointers. He commits turnovers on only 8.9 percent of his possessions, per KenPom.com. He affects the game against man-to-man (1.23 points per possession) or zone defenses (1.17 PPP), both excellent marks per Synergy Sports scouting data.

And Alford, the only UCLA player to ever register at least1,700 points and 500 assists, will end his polarizing tenure among the storied program's career leaders in scoring (1,909 points, fifth all time), 3-pointers (326, first) and assists (535, sixth).

"I work as hard as anybody in the offseason at just figuring out ways I can improve from the previous year," Alford told ESPN.com. "And I think a lot of it has to do with being off the ball and having guys take pressure off me like [Ball and Aaron Holiday]. I just don't have to take as many tough ones."

In the first game against Kentuckyearlier this season in Lexington, he scored 14 points and the Bruins won. To advance to the Elite Eight, his team will again ask the coach's kid to contribute, something he has done more consistently at the wing this season.

"Bryce is now playing a role that suits him, and he's thriving in it," said Matthew Barnett Cummings, who covers the Bruins for the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper. "That's made it a lot harder for UCLA fans to pin whatever frustrations they have with his dad on him. Whereas in the past, each shot by Bryce may have been a painful reminder of the program's fall, they now represent exactly what's fun about this team: they shoot a lot and they score a lot."

Zach LaVine's shadow and a difficult start

If Kentucky accrues a sizable advantage in Memphis, the program's fans will urge John Calipari to insert his son and walk-on, Brad Calipari, into the game. In blowouts throughout the season, Brad Calipari enjoyed a handful of minutes and possessions with Big Blue Nation aching for the freshman to hit a shot.

"My wife is on me all the time," Calipari, the coach, told reporters in Indianapolis last week. " 'You're up 21, why won't you put him in?' Come on. It's just nice being around him."

Alford never enjoyed a similar reception.

As a freshman on his father's first UCLA squad in 2013-14, he logged 23.1 minutes per game at point guard, nearly equal to the time future NBA lottery pickZach LaVinewas on the floor (24.4).

When LaVine turned pro after his freshman season and the first of back-to-back Sweet 16 runs, many interpreted his departure as an indictment of a coach who picked his son's future over a better player in LaVine.

"It's like a marriage," Paul LaVine, Zach's father, told the Los Angeles Daily News after his son announced his decision to turn pro. "If it doesn't work out, you get a divorce."

The team reached the Sweet 16 during Alford's sophomore year too, but LaVine's growth at the next level only magnified the criticism of the coach and his son. That season, Alford finished second on the team with 432 field goal attempts (39.6 percent). Coupled with complaints he refused to exert more than a minimal effort on defense, Alford began to embody everything the school's dissenters disliked about the program his father ran.

During a sub-.500 junior season that ended without an at-large NCAA tournament berth, Alford again finished second on the team in shots attempted and finished with a clip below 40 percent.

"Last year was brutal," he said. "Not only physically, because it was. It was very taxing on me. That was two straight years of playing around 38 minutes and being the ball handler and not really having anyone else to handle it. Aaron helped me last year, but I was point guard primarily for two years. It was very tough to do that and guard the other team's point guard for 38 minutes per night."

When disgruntled fans flew "Fire Alford!" banners over the campus after the 2015-16 season and started a petition for the coach's removal, they lambasted not only the coach but the entire family.

The vocal, disappointed UCLA backers wanted both Steve and Bryce out.

"Many fans feel Steve Alford hijacked the program for the worse to try to enhance Bryce's shot at an NBA career," Cummings said.

The coach's son conundrum

Alford's plight also speaks to the intensified emotions that often follow impactful players who play for their fathers.

The Brad Caliparis of college basketball are often safe from scrutiny because they don't log enough minutes to generate any controversy. They're often likable underdogs, much like Tyler Self, coach Bill Self's son, at Kansas.

The other extreme involves the rare case where a great player leads his father's team to unprecedented heights. Bryce Drew's miraculous shot for Valparaiso, coached by his father Homer Drew, changed the school and the 1998 NCAA tournament. Creighton'sDoug McDermottelevated his program into the Big East while winning the Wooden Award in 2014 under his father and coach Greg McDermott.

"Obviously, with Doug's success at the collegiate level, there were not many critics," Greg McDermott said.

Those players in between walk-on and all-star, however, often face critics who turn to a coach's offspring as tangible representations of a coach and program they believe failed them, in bad times. Those sons become the airport ticket agents dressed down by customers when a winter storm delays a flight.

Tubby Smith's son, Saul, helped Kentucky win a national championship in 1998, but callers to his father's radio show often accused the coach of giving his son too much time on the floor in the years that followed.

"The Kentucky fans wanted higher-rated point guards, but we recruited all of them and they came on visits," Saul Smith said. "Hell, I begged them all to come to Kentucky because I wanted to win another championship."

New Mexico fans sent death threats to Cullen Neal, head coach Craig Neal's son, before he transferred to Ole Miss following a turbulent 17-15 season in 2015-16.

"It definitely affected me," Cullen Neal told ESPN.com. "It affected me in a way I never thought it would. I tried to fight through it and get past it. I couldn't when the time came."

In recent years, the anti-Alford crowd has populated Bryce Alford's social media posts with comments intended to demean him, his father, his mother, his girlfriend and others close to him.

"I had to try very hard not to reply to some of them," said Alford, the senior guard.

Alford maintains a positive persona online, but he admits the backlash was difficult to digest. That is, until he decided to ignore his opposition and become the villain they wanted.

"People are going to hit me on Twitter, "Alford said. "You can't not see it in this day and age. It's more not taking that stuff to heart and try to come out on the court and say all right, 'So and so said this so I'm gonna go hit a 3.' It's more so just, 'You know what? They said it. Big deal. People hate me. Let's embrace that, you know?' Let's embrace the role that a lot of people don't like me because I play for my dad and go out there and play your game. Who cares?"

He played point guard for those struggling squads. Clearly, not his best position. He played big minutes on a team with youngsters who had not yet blossomed. He took a lot of shots but never as many as his naysayers assumed.

But it was all Bryce's fault, an easy excuse in a dark time for a program haunted by a rich legacy that seemed faraway. Alford is clear on those who cite nepotism in their critiques: He has worked for everything he has gained at UCLA.

"A lot of people don't know what they're talking about because they see coaches have sons play for them at a younger level, in AAU or in high school, where maybe they do get a little privileged just because the level of basketball isn't what it is here," he said. "So I've learned to just brush it off because there's people that have been saying the same thing since I got here, that I don't deserve to be here. ... It's not just me, it's everybody that plays for their dad."

A Sweet 16 and a redemptive ending

Last summer, the Bruins traveled to Australia for an international tour, and shortly after the trip, UCLA morphed into its next phase when Ball slid into the starting point guard role for Steve Alford's team, which demanded his son's switch to the wing.

"Basically, [Steve Alford]'s gonna let me play," Lonzo Ball told ESPN.com before the season. "That's what I like. I'm not trying to have nobody put no restrictions on me."

Oh, there are no restrictions on that magic act.

The free-spirited Ball is a businessman, whose arrival could result in millions for the prospects around him. Ball's presence helped Alford return to a more comfortable slot and now, the Bruins will enter Friday's Sweet 16 matchup against Kentucky ranked second in adjusted offensive efficiency.

Ball gives Alford a primary distributor, arguably the nation's best. Alford gives Ball a 3-point shooter who made 49 percent of his shots from beyond the arc in Pac-12 play this season.

"To be honest, I don't have to give too much advice to Lonzo," Alford told reporters last week. "He's a very smart basketball player. He knows what he's doing out there and he does a great job of not letting pressure get to him."

Their on-court bond changed the fortunes of a UCLA squad that went from a flying "Fire Alford!" banner hovering above Westwood to a possible Final Four appearance and 12th national championship banner in the coming weeks.

"I don't know if it's so much of redeeming ourselves from last year," Alford said. "More so just getting back to where this program is supposed to be. It's where everyone expects us to be."

Winning changed things.

For UCLA and the Alford family.

Steve Alford, the subject of rumors he might accept Indiana's opening, could get another high-profile job a year after returning a contract extension and writing a letter of apology to fans. The Bruins have, at a minimum, secured their third Sweet 16 berth in four seasons, while awaiting five-star prospectJaylen Handsand an incoming recruiting class ranked second behind Kentucky's crew by ESPN.com.

"I hope both of us can just continue to enjoy the blessings we've had," Steve Alford said of his son. "It's been incredible. ... That father-son dynamic is fun. And we have had a blast to this point."

Alford, the son, will leave UCLA etched into the history books of the program John Wooden built before someone pays him to extend his career.

He wonders what the UCLA fan base will say about him in 25 years.

"I think mostly [I hope they say] that I wanted to win more than anything and that I took everything on my sleeve and played as hard as I possibly could," he said. "I wasn't the most gifted athletically. I wasn't the most gifted in any way on a basketball court, but I did everything I possibly could to help my team win every night. At the end of the day, I think there isn't a better example of somebody who represents UCLA the way that I've tried to do."

The shift in tone is illustrated on Alford's various social media feeds.

Two months ago, he tweeted a grateful observation on his 22nd birthday.

In the comments, folks offered birthday wishes and praise.

On Friday, the Alford family could rewrite the ending to their story at UCLA a year after some wondered if the administration would make a change.

Now, the Bruins boast a serious opportunity to emerge in the South Region and return to the Final Four, after their most recent appearance in 2008. Bryce Alford remembers the tough years.

Today, he's a character in a better tale, where the final memory could stand above the rest.

"I'm cool now," he said. "I don't have the emotional stress. I don't have the physical [stress]. It's been so much easier."