Q: On what Tim Floyd had to say about Love: Hoiberg: " He thought the world of Kevin. He coached...

Q: On what Tim Floyd had to say about Love:

Hoiberg: " He thought the world of Kevin. He coached against him this year and felt it was tough to game-plan against him because he does so many things with his ability to spread the floor and rebound. Opponents always have to have two guys sprint back because of his outlet passes. I played for Tuim at Iowa State the Bulls for a year and a half. He really liked OJ Mayo's competitive nature and his ability to play at this level. For us, it was a tough decision. He brings a lot of things to the table. But in the end, we felt that Kevin does just as many of things. He brings the intangibles that not very many players in this league can. Tim said putting a game-plan against Kevin Love was always very difficult. When they played UCLA, he was the guy you had to key around."

Link to KL interview / press conference

2 months ago Achilles Comment 8 comments 0 recs |

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It's Just Impossible

not to fall in love with KL in this scenario. He is so gracious and enthusiastic.

What the hell Floyd really knows about him-or anything-I cannot imagine, since he doesn’t even notice his own player’s agents lumbering in and out of his office…but Kevin is a class act, and I’m so proud of him.

Love My Bruins

by Bruingirl83 on Jun 27, 2008 9:24 PM PDT 0 recs

I know it's popular ...

to dismiss Floyd, but it’s a mistake to underestimate him.

I have no idea why he’s building his program with so many questionable guys, but that doesn’t mean he can’t coach.

They beat us the last two years, IIRC, and I think they’ll be top three in the conference this year …

I think they and ASU should both be tough next year. Taj Gibson, Demar Derozan and James Harden might be the three best players we don't have (Okay, you have to throw in Budinger and Brockman and some others, but they are still good).

Go Bruins

by Achilles on Jun 27, 2008 11:10 PM PDT up 0 recs

I think they'll be fourth

Arizona St. and us are the clear top 2 teams IMO and with Budinger coming back I think Arizona’s the #3 team in the conference. USC would be 4th in our fairly weak conference next season.

by ryebreadraz on Jun 27, 2008 11:24 PM PDT up 0 recs

They only beat us last year

1 and 2 against us. We swept them the year before (on Arron Afflalo’s backbreaking pullup shot, christening the Costco Center the right way). I agree with rye below that UA, despite their recent struggles, should have enough to give a depleted trOJan team a lot of trouble getting into the top 3.

by Tydides on Jun 28, 2008 8:35 AM PDT up 0 recs

Now I remember

it was the year before that they beat us … last loss before we went on a run to the FF.

Point is, Floyd is not a bad coach. I don’t like the way he’s building his program - he has all the mannerisms of someone in it for the short run because he isn’t building a foundation - but he can coach. SC plays defense, too.

It’s funny, but if there was one Pac 10 player from another team I could take it would be Taj Gibson - over Budinger, Brockman - even Harden. Gibson is a tough, lunch pail type player—his rebounding and shot blocking would be nice to have.

Go Bruins

by Achilles on Jun 28, 2008 10:07 AM PDT up 0 recs

He can coach well

It’s purely my opinion, however, that just coaching doesn’t make you a good college coach. Because recruiting is an integral part of the job description, failures in that area, whether in talent or in ethics, is a huge negative. Ironically, because of his recruiting failures, one would think that the NBA is the place for him (although then you substitute management of recruiting for management of egos) but he was one of the biggest NBA failures in the books.

I’d take Gibson over Budinger. But I would take Brockman over Gibson. I love Brock’s game and I wish he had come to UCLA.

by Tydides on Jun 28, 2008 10:28 AM PDT up 0 recs

He did nothing in the pros ...

but those were the post-Jordan Bulls—so maybe he gets some slack there.

It was surprising to me that he never got close to the LSU job. He is from down there and there was lots of “talk” that Floyd wanted that job and then it opened up and nothing happened.

It just seems like he’s going after the quick fix in recruiting and that gives you the impression that he was going to bolt the first chance he had.

I completely agree that his recruiting is weak and, more than that, it makes no sense. He seems to have no clue how to put together a roster, he’s recruiting kids, then recruiting over them, the parts don’t match and that doesn’t even address the fact that he’s going for the kids with weak academics and questionable interest in school.

See, SC is in a decent spot to build a good team. There is just so much talent in Southern California, they could build a solid program even if they conceded the top players to UCLA and to the out of state recruiters. Plus, they have the same L.A. weather and glamor that UCLA has—no reason why they couldn’t have some out of state recruits, too.

I think UCLA fans should actually root for Floyd to stay. He’s good enough to build a team that gives us a real rival, but he’s doing things so oddly he’ll never really become elite. The alternative is that he leaves and SC makes a better selection than him for a replacement and they become a real threat. The last thing I’d want if for someone elite to replace him. With their new gym, So Cal location and enough money, they could lure in someone better and that wouldn’t benefit us at all.

(BTW—In the same way we don’t really worry about SC hoops, SC football fans aren’t really worried about us. On the other hand, SC football fans were much happier when we had Dorrell than they are now with RN, NC and DW.)

Go Bruins

by Achilles on Jun 28, 2008 11:23 AM PDT up 0 recs

Southern Cal

Southern Cal football fans might not be “really worried about us.” But they sure are spending a lot of time writing about RN all over their message boards, blogs etc. Pretty funny to see how many Google News Alerts re. “Rick Neuheisel” turns up coming from Trojan sources. So if they are not really worrying about UCLA football, they have a funny way of showing of how relaxed they are about it.

As for Timmeh I agree that it’s better for UCLA hoops to have him around. But I just don’t write much about him except when he says something ridiculously stupid (i.e. Arizona being the “standard” of program) or when program gets in the “news” for all the wrong reasons (which has happened often under him). Either way their program will always be irrelevant as long as we have the right guy in charge for our program.

The relationship between UCLA football v. Southern Cal football is very different than the ones between the two school’s basketball program. On our side of the ledger we have Rose Bowls to show for along with Pac-10 championships and that 8 game streak. They have nothing equivalent off that sort on their side even after spending thousands of dollars to bring in mercenaries such as OJ Payo.

by Nestor on Jun 28, 2008 2:39 PM PDT up 0 recs