Shabazz Muhammad: 5 Reasons Why UCLA Is the Perfect One-and-Done Choice

By now, you should know that one of the top basketball recruits of the 2012 class, Shabazz Muhammad, has made his commitment to UCLA. He had offers from nearly every top school in the country, including Kansas and Kentucky, but he ended up going with the Bruins in the end.

Many were a little surprised with his choice and believe he made the wrong decision. Sure, he could have ended up at a school that probably has a better chance of winning, but there are many reasons why UCLA was the right school for the 5-star recruit.

Here are five reasons why Muhammad made the right decision in going with the Bruins.

Other Recruits

While Muhammad may have been the biggest name that the Bruins landed in this year's class, he is not the only talented player. UCLA also picked up arguably the top shooting forward in Kyle Anderson, a player who plays the position more like a point guard and will make everyone around him better. He's also a 5-star recruit.

Another player they landed, who is kind of getting lost in all of the hype, is Jordan Adams. He's a straight scorer and can knock down threes with ease. He's a fantastic underrated pickup and should instantly help a team that was ranked 168 in scoring last season.

UCLA has a top class this season, and it's pretty easy to see why Muhammad would want to play with that talent.

He'll Still Be the Man

Even with all of the talent that UCLA has recently brought to their program, Muhammad will still be considered the star on the team and receive the majority of the attention. That's something that every top player would like, regardless if they admit it or not.

At Kentucky, Nerlens Noel could end up stealing some of the spotlight from him. The same could be said of Kansas with their deep class, which includes a couple of 4-star players.

Muhammad is without question the new face of this program, and he won't end up getting lost among the other talent like he possibly would at some of the other schools.

Weak Pac-12

I don't think this needs much explanation, but the Pac-12 is weak. There's a reason only two teams made the NCAA tournament last season, and five of the 12 teams had a losing conference record.

The SEC has very talented teams like Florida, Vanderbilt and Alabama in the way. And the Big 12 is loaded with talent, with teams such as Missouri, Texas, Kansas State and Baylor.

Some may say he's afraid of competition and ended up taking the easy way out. I say it's a great shot at winning a conference title and locking up a high seed in the NCAA tournament. If Muhammad is only going to play college ball for one season, this is a great opportunity to accomplish bigger things with less road blocks in the way.  

Close to Home

Location has a lot to do with where players end up these days. If a recruit has an opportunity to play at a prestigious school, in front of his friends and family, he's going to take it, rather than travel across the other side of the country. Muhammad is from Las Vegas, NV, which is less than five hours away from Los Angeles, CA.

It's pretty obvious that playing close to home was a big factor in his decision, because he was also interested in UNLV and even visited the USC campus. With all of these other factors tying into his decision, playing for a team that isn't too far away from his family makes things that much sweeter.

He'll Be Looked at as a Hero

When you think of college basketball, one of the first teams you think about are the UCLA Bruins. But since the one-and-done rule has been established, teams like Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina have taken some of that shine away. This is a program that has won 11 national titles, made the Final Four 18 times and had 54 consecutive winning seasons until 2002.

UCLA has had some minor success, but they have only reached the NCAA tournament once in the last three seasons, and the last time they won a championship was in 1995. Muhammad now gives this team a chance to climb back on top of the college basketball world and take this program back to the glory days. 

If this in fact happens, he could go down in history with players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Reggie Miller and Bill Walton. This could be just the beginning of something special at UCLA, as Muhammad will try to get this program back to where they used to be.