On Winning

by glassbruin on Mar 16, 2008 8:43 AM PDT

I have a confession to make. I had followed the trend and believed that the Pac-10 tournament was an insignificant, no-pressure event, that really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. After watching the tournament this weekend, and carefully reading the post-game press and comments from our coaches and players, I want to make the case that the tournament is important and a critical part of our teams psyche, for this year and moving forward.

What did our head coach set as our goals for the season with every player on our team? "On our first day of practice, we talked about three goals," Love said. "Well, we've got two out of three, now we need to get the third."
The goals were Pac-10 regular-season championship, Pac-10 tournament championship, and national championship.
We all love our coach. He is by far the best coach in America. If he sets out this tournament as being an important goal at the beginning of the season then I think we need to trust him and passionately support it. (Also note that his protege, Jamie Dixon, has taken Pitt to another Big East championship in the tournament, overcoming incredible adversity with injuries etc.)
Our players HATE TO LOSE. I have underestimated how important this is to this particular team and to Howland teams in general. This is psychologically important. Consider this quote from our favorite center "We just don't want to lose,'' UCLA center Kevin Love said. "That's just the overall theme. Being such a competitive team, we're playing cards in the locker room, we're playing video games after the game, nobody ever wants to lose. That's the biggest thing on this team.
"We're so competitive no matter what it is. We're trying to go out there and win. We don't want anymore losses the rest of the season. We want to be cutting the nets down (today), and also six games after that." By nature teams that win have winners, and being a winner is as much about HATING TO LOSE as it is about winning sometimes.
During Coach Howland's long tenure, we are probably going to have bad things happen in the Pac-10 tournament. And bad things may happen in the NCAA tournament. And bad things may happen late in the regular season. But these are part of the sports process, and I think that it is important to recognize that it is not the coach's fault, it is part of the dynamics of basketball. Will Mbah a Moute and Love be able to play in the tournament? Probably. If they weren't, however, it still was not the wrong decision to play them. The impact on our teams WINNING MOJO from being able to overcome this type of adversity is intangible, and I (now) firmly believe that this type of attitude through the entire year is what is going to bring MULTIPLE BANNERS back to Pauley over time.

Ben Howland has brought players into our program who are winners. In every season there is an ebb and flow because it is impossible to maintain intensity for the whole season, in any sport peaking at the right time is key for ultimate success. Clearly he believes that peaking in the conference tournament is critical preparation for peaking in the Dance. If we lose, is it the end of the world? No. Should we put the bench in more to give them critical experience? Yes. But we should also go after the second of our three goals - Winning the Pac-10 tournament championship.

As I said in the beginning of my post, I did not believe this coming into this tournament. I know that many of you may respectfully disagree with this sentiment. But after a lot of reflection, I think the best coach in America is on to something with his passion to end up #1 on April 7.

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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Matter of procedure

I hear you Glassbruin. If there are games to be played, this team desperately wants to win them. I think the common refrain against the tourney is that the Pac 10, unlike (most/all?) other leagues, plays a balanced schedule, and I believe which ever team prevails after those 18 games should be declared the conference champion. That just seems more fair. Also, that time would help heal up injuries and let the kids take their midterms.

Also, the tourney helps the Pac 10 get more money, obviously with the tourney itself and perhaps in the NCAAs - I think one other reason may be to occasionally get in another team to the Dance that did not have a good shot at the end of the season, via it winning the tourney, which may happen today re Illinois and Georgia.

I'm all for winning mojo, I just think the extra games aren't needed.

Vaya con dios.

by boston bruin on Mar 16, 2008 9:26 AM PDT reply actions

I am against the Pac 10 tournament

it exists for only two reasons.

schedule more games, sell more tickets, and sell more TV time.
provides the miniscule chance that a Pac 10 bubble team may improve its chance of selection or having won the tournament win the automatic bid.

Meanwhile, our kids play more minutes and increase the chance of injury. I also do care for it because I believe the regular season champion is the true champion. What's the point of having a regular season if in one tournament you can win it all? Makes no sense to me.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. John Wooden

by MexiBruin on Mar 16, 2008 12:55 PM PDT reply actions

Maybe a pre-season tournament

We could do a pre-season tournament, and the winner got to have all it's games at home, or something like that. Then the regular season to determine the seeding for the post-season tournament. Yeah - I like it. Sort of like the NHL, where ever team qualifies for the playoffs, plus one or two teams who weren't in the league.

by Fox 71 on Mar 16, 2008 1:57 PM PDT up reply actions

like the preseason idea - state v. state rivalries

how about a pac 10 pre-season tourney where a WSU/UW winner plays the OSU/OU winner, the Stan/Cal winner plays the UCLA/USC winner, and the ASU/UA winner just, um, plays Texas Tech or something.

Vaya con dios.

by boston bruin on Mar 16, 2008 2:07 PM PDT reply actions

Good Points

The Conf. Tour. (CT) does indeed establish momentum for the team that wins it. Looking back at this last couple of weeks, I'd rather see us triumph than just sit around after the furd/Cal-stirred doubts.

It's too bad that we lost Luc (probably and hopefully not too terribly long), and even though we likely locked up a one seed at the end of the reg. season, our winning the CT locks it indisputably. Notice how, now and finally, the overwhelming number of national sports spinsters are no longer questioning UCLA as a 1 seed. Couldn't have said the same a week ago, especially with how some of the naysayers thought we were lucky to win, or stole the Furd/Cal games.

Moreover, consider this: People are saying both Kansas and TX are deserving of #1 seeds (I tend to mildly agree). Suppose further that Duke won the ACC, and TN the SEC (not altogether far fetched possibilities before they lost), then you'd have six teams, UNC, Duke, TN, TX, Kansas and Memphis, all be in the hunt for the 1. And, if you like to go by stats and such, I'd say derservingly so. Given this, it's not altogether unfathomable that we be knocked out of the 1 seed loop. W/o the CT this week, UCLA be outta sight, outta mind, w/ distant memorialized images of "all leather" calls and circus luck shots. Stranger things have happened.

(As I type, CBS just showed that UCLA's 4th in overall RPI. 4th!?!)

Injuries? Well, that's another story. After KL's back, I was cringing and praying to (and neraly cursed at) the almighty that we end yesterday's god forsaken game. However, it was admittedly a visceral responce. And I like to see the stats on how many players play in CTs, and how many of those players actually get hurt.

The CTs say to their teams: If you've not really proved yourself during the reg. season, then here's one more chance; if you have proved yourself, then do it one last time and SHOW THE REST OF THE COUNTRY how good you are. UCLA did exactly that. Assuredly silencing the bias/hating critics.

Clear the Santa Ana, here we come OC!

Regeards,
Rich

Go UCLA!

by Rich1996UCLA on Mar 16, 2008 2:20 PM PDT reply actions

RPI

The only time I ever cared about RPI was in the BHP years when we were always on the bubble and trying to point at our RPI as a factor to get us into the tournament. The only thing that matters is the opinion of the selection committee and unfortunately, that's pretty secretive. A few other general rankings I like to look at are the:
Sagarin Ratings
Pomeroy Ratings
KenPom's blog also has a clone of the RPI ratings here but I can't take any rating seriously at this point that puts Tennessee at the top. If you look at the basic equation too, it's pretty dumb (1/4*(Winning Percentage) + 1/2*(Opponents' Average Winning Percentage) + 1/4*(Opponents' Opponents' Winning Percentage)) so I wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Fortunately, unlike CFB, college basketball doesn't really put too much stock in computers and forces teams to show what it can do on the court. And with a good chance of us being #1 in the West, we've done pretty much all we can to put us in good shape going into the tournament....

by sfatoo on Mar 16, 2008 2:38 PM PDT up reply actions

My sense is that these gratuitous tournaments

are going to keep at least one Pac 10 team out of the Dance.

Some weak sisters won their tournaments shrinking the bubble.

Strong teams in a strong conference, like ours, lost games -- as would be predicted. Our teams lost to teams better than most of the teams that won other conferences.

Tournaments favor weak teams and conferences.

Now that the Pac 10 is tough. We don't need this.

sjh

by Class of 66 on Mar 16, 2008 3:03 PM PDT reply actions