Open Practice Today

by jatteratious on Oct 29, 2006 5:00 PM PST

So, today they let students in to watch the B-ball team practice, and let me just say this much: our team is frickin' amazing. Aside from Mata and Wright (who were sitting out) every returning player has shown noticeable improvement.

Collison is frickin' QUICK, and he pretty much single-handedly led his (gold) team to a 12 point comeback in the last 3 minutes of the scrimmage. Afflalo and Shipp are frickin' BEASTS (I think Afflalo added some muscle).

Roll is more accurate than I've ever seen him (He knocked down most of his threes, and also two layups), and the Cameroon crazies are still, well... crazy. But probably the biggest standouts were Keefe and Dragovic. Dragovic was dropping threes like NOTHING. That guy has SERIOUS range. In fact I would not be surprised at all if he ended up being our leading scorer.

Keefe didn't score as much but had a very Howlandish presence. He fits perfectly into Howland's system, and you can definitely tell. Also, they had Mustafa playing alongside Collison for awhile, and those guys clicked VERY well. I wonder if Howland may be thinking of putting those two in together against some slow teams..

All in all, I am ridiculously pumped for this season. These guys are PHYSICAL (Afflalo got hit by a swinging arm to the face and Abboya got sent to the ground at one point by a flying Luc), and they can SCORE. I cannot express exactly how kickass this team is.

Oh, and one more thing which I thought is really cool: one of our defending-national-champion volleyball players has walked on to the basketball team. He looks like he's actually going to get some minutes, too! Does anyone know if there has ever been an athlete to get a National Championship in two different college sports? That's definitely something to look into; more bragging rights for UCLA!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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All things considered...

I think we're the best team in the country. Yup, Florida is Florida, but repeating is hard to do.

I am so pumped for this season. IN BEN WE TRUST!

Go Bruins...F@#$% Southern Cal... UCLA Fight Fight Fight!

by HomeBruin @ Bruins Nation on Oct 29, 2006 5:02 PM PST reply actions

no dunk contest :(

i was kinda sad bout that. westbrook also didn't suit out. farmar was there tho. he was in the stands then went and sat on the sideline about half-way through the scrimmage. nice to see the support. i wanted to take some pics but they wouldn't let anyone. afflalo was tearing it up and aboya is soo strong. can't wait till thurs!

by stevetotheo on Oct 29, 2006 5:33 PM PST reply actions

It's good to see Farmar still there

which proves to all the people out there that he left because he did not like Howland and his style that it wasn't true. He simply saw a chance to go to the NBA and be a first round pick.

What I liked most about the scrimmage today was Dragovic. I heard reports about him from what he did in Europe and was excited and today only furthured my excitment. The kid is LONG and has range. He also seemed to answer his critics who said he was soft defensively because he was playing physical Howlandesque defense. The best part of the scrimmage was when Dragovic pulled up from a good 5 feet behind the 3 point line and drilled it causing Howland to laugh momentarily and start whispering in his assitant's ear. Watch our for Nicola, he could be a 15 point a night guy this year.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Oct 29, 2006 5:50 PM PST up reply actions