UCLA tipped off ESPN’s now-annual college basketball marathon at midnight ET late Monday night, so very few people east of the Rockie Mountains were around for the conclusion, which came after two overtimes. The Bruins’ 68-65 loss to Cal State-Fullerton, a team picked seventh in the nine-team Big West, was a sobering reminder of how much UCLA has lost over the last two years.

Kevin Love, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Russell Westbrook, Lorenzo Mata-Real, Josh Shipp, Darren Collison, Jrue Holliday, Alfred Aboya. That is a lot of talent to replace — five first-round picks — and UCLA looks a bit short right now. Against the Titans on Monday night, only seven players played more than a single minute.

Three of those seven were from Ben Howland’s heralded 2009 recruiting class — Malcolm Lee, Drew Gordon and Jerime Anderson. This was the class that was supposed to limit the dropoff once the Collison-Shipp-Mbah a Moute-Aboya class had departed. The first problem was that the class’ best player, Holliday, went pro after a year. That wasn’t an unexpected development, but suddenly Collison didn’t have a fit heir apparent. Anderson saw limited action last year, and it was not always at the point. When he did play, he turned the ball over too much.

Second, J’Mison Morgan, the No. 3 center in the 2008 class according to Scout, has had almost no impact so far. After playing often and ineptly in early-season games last year, he was a DNP for nine of UCLA’s last 12 games. This year, after playing 12 minutes in a narrow exhibition win over Concordia, Morgan did not play against Fullerton. Of course, Morgan isn’t alone as a slow developer among the top centers from that class.

The No. 1 center in the 2008 class, B.J. Mullens, played well enough at Ohio State to go 24th in the NBA Draft after one season, but most in Columbus were disappointed by his often disinterested performances and the mere 20 minutes he played per game. No. 2 Rashanti Harris is still waiting to become eligible at Georgia State. No. 4 Ty Walker played in just 11 games at Wake Forest last season and is averaging seven minutes per game for the Deacons so far this season. Michael Dunigan at Oregon, Kenny Kadji at Florida, Henry Sims at Georgetown, Jeff Withey at Arizona — none of these guys has made much of an impact so far. That’s the nature of many big men, but it’s certainly hurting UCLA right now.

While it’s definitely too early to say UCLA whiffed on the 2008 class, right now those players are not good enough to offset the losses UCLA has suffered. Players like Michael Roll, James Keefe and Nicola Dragovic came to UCLA were varying levels of fanfare, but they’ve shown the ability to be solid roll players, effective when not asked to carry a large burden. Against CSF, Dragovic and Roll combined to shoot 29 times, and UCLA’s offensive efficiencies suffered (to be fair, Roll was one of the few effective players for UCLA on offense with a 50.0 eFG on 15 attempts to go with five assists and no turnovers).

UCLA has a team of players not good enough or not yet ready to take on a scoring load. The defense looks fine. It held the Titans to 0.81 PPP and forced turnovers on 22.5 percent of possession. UCLA also did well on the boards, especially on the defensive glass where Dragovic grabbed 13 and Keefe eight. But even a defense that good was unable to overcome 5-for-29 shooting from deep (17.2 percent) and a 33.9 eFG.

There are reasons to pick optimism from the mire of this loss. First, the Bruins have had to deal with a myriad of injuries in the preseason, which has hindered a new team’s ability to congeal. Tyler Honeycutt, one of the nation’s top freshman small forwards, is out for a month, and he would certainly deepen Howland’s rotation. This is a team whose offense should improve with each successive game, and the defense is already solid.

Second, this was a particularly poor shooting performance, even with a team this young and flawed. For all his limitations, Dragovic was a 38 percent 3-point shooter on 150 attempts last year. On Monday, he went 1-for-9. Lee has ability going to the rim, but instead he attempted eight threes, making just one. Lee hit on 57 percent of his twos last year but made just 6-of-15 (40 percent) on Monday. Anderson, though not a good shooter, went 1-for-11. A minimal improvement in any of those shooting numbers, and UCLA wins this game, and it becomes merely a close call — like Kentucky’s win over Miami (Ohio) — rather than the lead on SportsCenter for 24 hours.

Third, the Pac-10 isn’t very good this year. In fact, it’s looking more and more like the Pac-10 is the worst of the major conferences. That means, unlike in recent years, UCLA will not need to be quite as good to win conference games. Matchups with Washington State, Stanford and USC don’t look as daunting as in recent seasons. UCLA is clearly a step behind Cal and Washington, but the Bruins should still be able to play with the rest of the league. Arizona State looks strongest of the rest of the Pac-10 so far, but the Sun Devils have yet to face a quality opponent. On the other hand, neither has UCLA.