Similar to how great things were forecast back before Labor Day.

Just a hunch, but here's guessing the basketball Bruins fare slightly better than their football brothers, who talked a good game but since have played a string of lukewarm ones.

"The big challenge for us will be our expectations," football coach Karl Dorrell said in late August.

"We all expect to do great things. It's an exciting place to be since UCLA hasn't been in this position in a long time."

What position is that, exactly? Mediocre middle of the Pac-10? Isn't that pretty much where the Bruins always are?

For the record, here's what real expectations look, sound and feel like at UCLA:

Lorenzo Mata-Real, a returning starter now forced to come off the bench, doing so with 14 points and 14 rebounds Monday.

Experts all over our country and all over your television calling Darren Collison the best point guard in the nation.

Kevin Love grabbing a defensive rebound yesterday and launching an outlet pass to a breaking Josh Shipp for a dunk, the play literally palpable throughout Pauley Pavilion.

"Big things, that's what we're thinking this season," guard Russell Westbrook said. "If we play together and put in the work, things will happen in the end. We think all the rest will take care of itself."

Where the school's football team advanced a well-intended but hollow fantasy, UCLA's basketball team is very real. Today, there is more behind the words than wishes. There is substance everywhere, even in street clothes yesterday, Collison and Michael Roll among the injured and inactive Bruins.

This team is as legitimate as Love is and, by the way, later against Cal State San Bernardino, he made another dazzling outlet to Westbrook for a second dunk.

UCLA is ranked No. 2 in the country and could be better than that. Another Pac-10 championship might be unavoidable. A third consecutive Final Four appearance seems to be an at-least proposition.

"We know what everyone expects," Westbrook said. "We play in a big fish bowl here. We play with a target on our backs. But what helps us deal with it is how unselfish we are as a team. We really are one out there."

It can be impossible, trying to live up to a legacy marked by a gym full of hanging laundry. John Wooden casts the most endearing yet foreboding shadow in sports, often from just a couple rows off the home court.

But Ben Howland has a winning percentage of .833 since the fall of 2005. His Bruins haven't lost at Pauley in 23 games. He successfully recruited a center the Lakers would trade for today and start tomorrow.

Just as notable in this school year of the colossal upset, the Bruins in three games have avoided being mercied — or Mercer-ed — like USC was. They haven't been entangled in Gardner's Webb or been Grand Valley Stated.

They've dispensed of the Vikings, Penguins and Coyotes, which sounds like something an NHL team would do. Not terribly impressive but a lot better than trying to explain a loss to an opponent that this month also played MSU-Billings and Metro State.

Now the Bruins travel to Kansas City to play Maryland, which, unlike Cal State San Bernardino, figures to score more than 11 first-half points. The Bruins won't have the fortune of playing many more teams that have the same number of turnovers as points after 20 minutes.

"We're ready," Westbrook said of the pending step up in competition. "This is an experienced team.

We're set to go."

They are ready, set and, most importantly, have the ability to go and long way this season. Sounds better in mid-November than late August.

"We have to perform," Bruins tailback Chris Markey said back then. "We've been having mediocre seasons the last four or five years. We have to win the (Pac-10) title to get respect in this conference. Another mediocre season isn't going to cut it."

Another mediocre season is what the football team is delivering. But it's basketball season in Westwood now.

Believe the hype. Buy the expectations. Trust the forecast.

Phony prophesying, this isn't. This is real today, the words as authentic as Wooden himself.