There was a time not very long ago in UCLA basketball history that a coach who had been to three Final Fours was run out of town. It wasn’t so much that Ben Howland hadn’t done the job well — seven NCAA tournament appearances in 10 years and seven first-round NBA draft picks said otherwise — but he certainly didn’t represent what UCLA romantics thought their basketball program should be.

Personally awkward and defense-focused, Howland was stylistically miscast in a town that has long preferred a plastic smile to the wrinkles and fine lines that come with fading beauty. When a few cracks in Howland’s program started to form, firing him was easy.

But even Hollywood’s best cosmetic surgeons wouldn’t be able to erase the marks of stress that have formed over UCLA’s last few decades.

It says a lot about where the program of John Wooden now stands in the college sports landscape that once UCLA’s three-month-old coaching search finally got serious this week after a laughable attempt to lure John Calipari, it turned its focus away from superstar names that were never coming and instead moved on to coaches who would do well to produce a Howland-era encore.

Multiple reports have placed TCU’s Jamie Dixon — a literal Howland disciple without as impressive a résumé — as UCLA’s current preference, assuming a multi-million dollar buyout of his contract can be navigated. If UCLA can’t nail down Dixon, the Los Angeles Times reported Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin — another coach who lacks flash both stylistically and in his accomplishments — would likely be next in line.

In a rational environment, either Dixon or Cronin would be a reasonable hire and certainly an upgrade over the eternally mediocre Steve Alford. While Pittsburgh fans may have grown weary of Dixon’s earlier-than-expected March exits, he significantly out-performed the program’s history in a very tough Big East and needed just two seasons to lift TCU to its first NCAA tournament in 20 years. Likewise, Cronin hasn’t often advanced deep in the tournament but has found a way to make it in for nine straight years at a school that doesn’t attract many elite prospects.

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There’s certainly a scenario where a veteran, accomplished coach in the Dixon or Cronin mold would be able to leverage UCLA’s resources and the talent base in Los Angeles and bring the Bruins back to national relevance.

But it’s now clear that UCLA’s choice will likely generate less fanfare than when the football program brought in Chip Kelly 16 months ago. Which, for anyone plugged into the larger world of college sports, sounds about right. But for a large segment of UCLA fans who believes the program’s brand should still measure up to Kentucky, North Carolina and Kansas, it sounds more like heresy.

But here’s how a UCLA search driven by Golden State Warriors president of basketball operations Bob Myers and Wasserman agency CEO Casey Wasserman ended up with a list of candidates destined to underwhelm, according to five college athletics insiders who have been tracking the situation and spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to give their unvarnished opinion:

1. Expectations are out of control

It would be inaccurate to suggest UCLA fans believe another Wooden-like run of 10 national titles is right around the corner. But they also haven’t fully come to grips with the reality that Arizona passed them 20 years ago as the preeminent program on the West Coast and that even Gonzaga is now as strong of a national brand in some ways.

Can you win a national title at UCLA? Sure, even though it hasn’t been done since 1995. But established coaches — say, Virginia’s Tony Bennett — would be right to wonder how much leeway they’d get given how little Howland got after three Final Fours and that Alford seemed to be perpetually on the hot seat even after making three Sweet 16s in his first four years.

2. Are the resources really there?

UCLA’s six-year, $48 million offer to Calipari, as reported by The Athletic, was perhaps leaked to dispel the notion that the Bruins were going cheap, which has been their reputation in the industry for a number of years.

Sure, $8 million a year is a lot of money, but Calipari already makes more. So the idea he would have taken a pay cut to go from Kentucky to UCLA never made sense, but at least the Bruins have sent notice they’re willing to pay big for someone with championship credentials. Of course, there aren’t many coaches of Calipari’s caliber out there who would be worth that kind of deal. The key question is, will UCLA still invest in perks like private plane time to recruit that it would have given Calipari or make the next coach stand in the A-group at Southwest when he wants to go see a player?

Plus, even though UCLA opened a basketball practice facility in 2017, one person who has toured through it said it’s not quite on par with the top facilities in the country.

“They have lottery picks walking blocks from their campus, pros want to work out there in the summer, so you’ve got all that,” a person connected to coaching search industry said on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. “But what they haven’t figured out is the name doesn’t do it anymore. You have to do more. You have to have the facilities, you have to charter to every game, you have to allow your coaches charter to go recruit. They have the glamorous stuff no one else has but if you don’t have other stuff with it, it’s just a good job."

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3. Who’s in charge?

While longtime athletics director Dan Guerrero was the public face of the search, the next UCLA coach will almost certainly have a new boss by the time his first contract is up. Though the 68-year old Guerrero has done a lot to grow UCLA athletics, his legacy for many fans will be misfiring on Alford as well as several football hires. Whether Kelly and the next basketball coach work out could determine if Guerrero’s top deputy Josh Rebholz succeeds him or the school hits reset on the entire department. Nobody can guarantee that over the long haul, and big-time coaches prefer to know who their athletics director is going to be.

“Everyone wants it to be Kentucky or Duke and it’s just not,” said one person familiar with the job who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the discussions. “The coaches have all the power at those schools. At UCLA, the UC system political crap matters, the academics matter. It’s not the same situation.”

4. There’s no natural heir

Some UCLA alums have been pushing on social media for the job to go to former Bruin point guard Earl Watson, who spent 118 games as the Phoenix Suns’ head coach. Another name that was connected to UCLA early was Luke Walton, whose job with the Lakers is clearly in jeopardy.

The fact that UCLA fans take either of them seriously just underscores how few natural candidates there are with connections to the program.

Watson would be both a nostalgia hire and a major gamble, as his brief coaching career has been oriented toward the NBA. He also, as the Wall Street Journal reported, has not yet completed his bachelor’s degree, although he plans to finish it by the summer. Walton, the son of UCLA legend Bill Walton, had a brief foray into college coaching under Josh Pastner at Memphis during the 2011 NBA lockout. One person familiar with Walton’s thinking told USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of those conversations that the experience made him wary of what it takes to recruit at the highest level.

The bottom line for UCLA is that short of landing Calipari, Bennett or Rick Pitino (which isn’t happening for a variety of reasons), the rest of its candidate pool was always going to be in the solid/boring mold of Dixon or Cronin.

That should be good enough for most schools in college basketball because, at the end of the day, those are quality coaches who will improve the product. But it doesn’t scream that UCLA is still an elite-level job.

“It’s one of the most respected brands in college basketball, but is it at the level of Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas?” a person familiar with the coaching search industry said on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. “No, but it’s the next tier down Arizona, Syracuse, Michigan, Indiana.”