A Note Re. Evoking CHP (Con Artist/Sleazebag) To Criticize Howland

Having been my first game as a UCLA student, and aside from a brief duck-in during a campus tour, my first time in Pauley Pavilion, that game is burned quite deeply in my mind.

I hear ya N. You don’t even want to know the crap that is being thrown around on the message boards. We can all debate on whether player X should play over player Y, if someone is giving it their all, etc.

BUT, nobody should be comparing CBH to Lavin or taking cheap shots at him. It reminds me of the so called “fans” that questioned whether we needed a new HC because CBH failed to win a title. LOL! I guess programs like Syracuse, Kansas and UCONN F’d up by not firing Boeheim, Williams and Calhoun. Those worthless coaches!

I’m fine with people that want to get off the bandwagon….gives me room to stretch my legs out. :D

Admittedly they looked out of sorts. Their shooting, defense, offense and as usual free throw shooting, left a whole lot to be desired. They looked like a team that just stepped onto the practice floor for the first time in three months. I am sure that CBH will get things whipped into shape by Pac-10 start. I watched the Zags and Mich St last night and was really glad that we weren’t facing a team like either of them right now, it would be truly ugly.
I think my starting five right now would be: Lee-PG, Roll, Keefe, Nelson and Gordon. Not a lot of fire power in there, but a bunch of guys that will give you 100%. Just like football, it will be fun to watch them mature as a team.

I mean you know of all people that UCLA fans that are bashing Howland are fair weather fans and have no insight in comparison.

That being said,

Feb. 22 1998 @ Duke 84-120

I can foresee a very down year for us in terms of wins and losses. We do not have a Pac-10 caliber point guard, and across the board the talent level is significantly down compared to any team (other than perhaps the first) in CBH’s tenure. The fact that Fullerton’s speed and athleticism was noticeably greater than the Bruins’ is telling indeed, and I’d say the two teams’ skill levels were relatively even; the only reason this game was close was due to Fullerton’s numerous unforced turnovers. ML will not have a second year like RW, JA is not comfortable at handling the ball, ND is streaky at best, JK has lost the aggressiveness he’s capable of, RN is raw, DG is out of position at center, and the go-to guy at this point is… MR? Don’t get me wrong, I love these guys and what they can bring to the party, but they will need to really gel to be greater than the sum of their parts, and it would appear to me that that will take some time.

Is there any doubt in anyone’s head that CBH will get these players to play at their best? to improve individually? and as a team? Not for me, although I doubt it will be reflected in wins and losses until the second half of the Pac-10 schedule, there is simply too far to go. And I would be only mildly surprised if it happens before that, I have such faith in CBH.

But to the point of the thread, I won’t even begin to think about comparing CBH to his predecessor. And anyone who does and arrives at a conclusion other than “night and day” is, to my mind, some combination of idiot, troll, hater, or Trojan.

Monday’s game was rough, but I was soooo grateful that the ESPN color ‘man’ did not have greasy hair.

…but this season is going to be painful at times. We will definitely have our bright, shining moments, but we are going to experience growing pains and some tough losses. Do I have a problem with this? No, I do not. CBH has proven that his style fits both div I college basketball and the NBA game (see the multitude of UCLA players in the NBA). I trust in Ben Howland.

As the season progresses, so will our team. It upsets me that some “fans” are already doubting our touted sophomores…they have barely played! Give them time to develop and grow…I guarantee that they will sprout into true Ben Ball Warriors.

As for those that compare Lavin to CBH…get the hell out of here. I was in school when Lavin was coach and it was an embarassment. Ugh.

After congratulating Fullerton for the victory to open his postgame press conference, the next thing Howland said was:

We took 84 shots, and only made 26 of them. A lot of that is probably because I did not substitute enough, and I think our legs got tired and it showed.

Compare that to other “leaders” we’ve had who would immediately deflect criticism by either praising the opposing team as the greatest thing ever or more often that not, throwing his own players under the proverbial bus. While Coach Howland does hold his players accountable (he mentioned Nelson’s really bad turnover, Roll missing the front end of the one and one and Dragovic’s shooting struggles, but balanced it with encouraging comments about all three as well), he knows that first and foremost, the onus of his team’s performance lies with him. After pointing out the missteps taken during the game he followed it with:

Part of that is my fault. We’ve gotta use Moser more. We’ve gotta use Nelson more.

and he closed the press conference with:

It’s hard when you’re asking kids to play that many minutes. So again that is my responsibility to manage.

We’re going to be fine. It’s going to be a bumpy road for awhile, but Coach Howland will get us where we need to be.

note: all emphases added are mine

My first season watching UCLA basketball was Lavin the Terrible’s Elite Eight run and as young kid I thought wow, I’m so glad UCLA’s basketball team is as good as their football team (Remember this was still the height of the Toledo era and I was 8 and didn’t know about our rich basketball history). Then it all went downhill from there.

Lavin the Terrible continued to disappoint me more and more year after year. I inititally cut him some slack but the team only got worse and worse and it was so frustrating because we clearly had the talent to beat those Stanford and ‘zona teams. I clearly remember one morning reading the LA Slimes when I saw another blowout loss to a Pac-10 opponent and I asked my dad what was wrong with our Bruins and he explained to me the history of UCLA basketball, our 11 national championships (I only knew about 1995), and Coach Woodens’s legacy and how Lavin the Terrible was throwing it down the toilet and from that point on I was disgusted by Lavin the Terrible. The Maples Massacre sealed the deal for me (I wanted to punch a wall) but by start of 2001 I was fervently calling for his head.

In summary, THERE IS NO COMPARISON TO CBH, AT ALL. Oh, and F*** the F***ing Fairweather Fans. We don’t need you anyway. These are the same people who root for the trOJans in football because Herbstreit and ESPN consistently fellate Cheatey Pete and his cronies and act like “USC is LA’s professional football team”. A sports writer for the Daily Princetonian wrote today of SUC’s downfall and the above in quotations and I am writing a letter to the editor calling out his consistent Bay Area bias and LACK OF KNOWLEDGE AS TO WHO THE BRUINS ARE. Not everyone in LA loves the Trojans, for example you will find no love here, but the ones who do and didn’t go to U$C are full of shit

I was actually thinking of a different year as being the Maples Massacre but the reality is that I feel like every time we went up to Maples it was a Massacre. All those loses to the Trees really made me favor Cal in Cal-Stanford matchups despite Cal’s obvious and annoying inferiority complex against our Bruins and be a generally anti-Stanford person probably so much that I didn’t apply to college there, a fact that only changed when my cousin and best friend went to Stanford two years ago. Up until then if you asked me who in the Pac-10 I hated after the pansies from the University of South Central I would have said the ‘furd. Nowadays though I’m rooting for the Cardinal in the Big Game. Toby Gerhart is a beast. Tedford is wayyyyyy overrated.

I think this year will, by far, be Howland’s most difficult and frustrating year in his entire tenure at UCLA, and perhaps his entire coaching career. A big part of that frustration will be borne from a fanbase that has been spoiled by 3 recent Final Four runs and Pac-10 championships and the expectations that this program can perform at an elite level every year. It is extremely, extremely difficult to achieve year after year success in today’s college basketball landscape (when point guards jump to the NBA after one season despite only averaging 8 ppg.)

No one is a bigger admirer of Howland than myself. However, I do believe that Howland has to re-calibrate his approach somewhat to perhaps adapt to today’s college basketball landscape. I believe he can do this and still adhere to the philosphies that has made this program and himself successful over the last 4 years or so. I believe in Howland and I trust he will find a way to bring this program back to an elite level.

We need to be patient, take our pain, keep supporting this team, and watch how this plays out.

Lavin is FAT. I’ve seen it.
Howland could run circles around him and spin him like a flabby pizza.