INDIANAPOLIS — UCLA had Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and all those championship banners. Florida had Vernon Maxwell and Lon Kruger.

Different programs on opposite coasts with divergent histories play for the national championship today in a game that offers yet another reminder of how the success of yesteryear no longer guarantees anything.

"Are we a basketball school the way Kentucky and Indiana are?" Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. "Not yet. That's the goal."

Staying there isn't possible in the way it was when John Wooden coached. No longer can a great coach like Wooden sit in his office and expect great players to come.

While no one has ever doubted UCLA's status as a basketball school — 11 national titles can do that for a program — their dynasty is long gone. UCLA is closer to its last losing season (11-18 in 2003-04) than its last national title (1995, behind Ed O'Bannon and Tyus Edney).

Coach Ben Howland, in his third year, got the Bruins back to the top not by riding Wooden's coattails. He did it the same way Billy Donovan did it at Florida: recruiting, selling, building a team in his own image, not what someone else thinks it should be.

"With winning, players are going to want to come to UCLA again," said Mike Warren, the captain of the title teams in 1967 and '68.

Committing to Florida was anything but trendy before Donovan arrived. Though the head Gators are loath to admit it, Florida is a football school. Its few moments of success in hoops were always overshadowed by something: