Not hing insightful in your first post. So I will respond with a cut and paste response.

I have seen only 1 and 1/2 game this year. From what I am seeing out there I see a team in which players are clearly getting used to each other.

I have to lol when I read comments about Howland needs to change his offense. Howland’s system at UCLA is so established at this point is that any changes to his offense would probably also entail adjustments to his defense? Why would we want to change a system that has clearly worked not only here in last three-four years or everywhere Howland has coached at?

What is essentially going on is right now our players are getting used to each other. They are "thinking" before their shots and passes. Once they get used to each other, I think they will become less mechanical and more fluid in how they operate as a team.

I am excited to see how these kid come along this year. This is why I love college basketball. It is fun to watch a team grow and develop under a great coach.

There’s no doubt about it and Howland has admitted as much. He said after the Final Four last year that he should have changed his matchups and would look into diversifying his offense some. We don’t have the world’s best offense and I don’t think anyone here would argue that we do, but if you’re going to come here with a comment on our offense then do so with something original.

Tell us what we could do better and where our offense is limited. You say you want us to change it up from time to time, but what do we change it up to? There’s also the fact that Howland likes to wear teams out with longer offensive possessions that cause the defense to work hard. How does that strategy fit in with an adjusted offense? How would we maximize the strengths of our personnel in an adjusted offense while still maintaining some of the objectives of our current offense?

Nobody is going to criticize you for coming here and disagreeing with some of Howland’s strategies. Howland has been questioned before and he will be questioned again, but come with something more insightful.

I stayed away from the topics dealing with our loss to Michigan because I reserve the right to be upset about the loss. It was unforgivable. I’m sure many of you will respond to my post with reminders how We/Howland has struggled against Beilein coached teams. I know because I was singing that song to everybody that asked for my reaction to the loss. But deep down inside I was angry I had to defend our loss at all. And why was a defense needed? because we lost to an unranked team without the glorious recruits we have brought in on the wake of our tournament successes. Nobody would say squat had we lost to Duke. They are ranked. And they are coached by a legend. There is no shame in losing to a Krysweski (sp?) coached team.

But, we lost to Michigan. And the one thing this loss has in common to those losses in the final four against Memphis and Florida was a stymied offense. I’m with you guys. I would much rather have our current program with it’s wins and deep tournament runs than the previous version with flashy games and occasional upsets against might opponents only to lose reliably to inferior opponents in the tournament’s early weekends.

I would like to see us employ the Run and Gun. The R&G is based on the tough nosed kind of defense that produces steals and defensive rebounds. On top of the fast strike ability of the R&G a team can always elect to reset to a deliberate half court offense when a team recovers in time to prevent the fast break.

I am also a big fan of the Princeton offense because it employs a clock killing deliberate offense that many times ends in crowd charging back door cuts to the basket. I remember being introduced to the Princeton offense by Princeton and Pete Carrill himself, and I’ll never forget it. It is poetry in motion, and entirely dependent on a team first (no superstars) mentality we love here in Westwood.

CBH played 10 players against Michigan, and most got significant minutes. He played 12 against SIU.

We all agree he hates losing, and didn’t “try to lose” a game, but I join with the others above who think he might risk losing an early game like this to build for the future when the games mean more.

And, here is the redundancy I cannot avoid: We have 5 young, superb but inexperienced players. Of our starters, only 2 have played significant minutes in the past. CBH is using these early games to: give people playing time, try different combinations of players, build chemistry — none of which are conducive to having an efficient offense.

CBH has his eyes on the prize. The prize is not necessarily winning these early tournaments or games.

The prize is winning the Pac 10, getting a high seed, and then winning the tournament.

We will not get there LATER — if we don’t let him do what he thinks he needs to do NOW.

sjh

PS. And, I think as good as our freshmen may be, they are really “thin” and need the year in the weight room to really blossom and play well in the Howland system. We have seen this happen so many times that it should be without question. The best example — probably Russell Westbrook.

This is the first few weeks of a new season with a new team. Chill.