UCLA Loses To Long Beach State, Completes One Of The Ugliest Weekend In Bruin Athletics

I don’t really know what to say, except that I think Ben Howland should take a step back and try to get a sense of what went wrong. He probably already is, but so far it feels (at least from my distant perspective) like he’s just been making minor adjustments.

ND should be benched… JA should come off the bench… why not play a zone this way we can hide MR’s weakness and allow J’mison to come in… i really think we have a chance to go with a big line up and slow the game down to early CBH days… 45-40 (final score)… i would love to see ML-MR-MM-DG-JM and just keep pounding the ball inside and run baseline screens like we used to run for AA for MR… i think we are putting too much pressure on ML to be THE MAN right now… he is a 3rd option at best at this point

I am referring to your post after the Fullerton loss.

This is a disgrace! Terrible week(end) for all of Bruin Nation.

Or your headline would’ve been even more furious. Our effort was no better than in the Portland game.

There is a serious, serious problem in our basketball program right now and it goes beyond inexperience and talent deficiencies. There is a serious lack of mental toughness that could be seen in spurts last year and is now in full view. A shocking number of Ben Howland recruits have turned out to be soft mental cripples. It is no exaggeration to say they have “quit” in the sense that they play soft more often than hard, and have nothing like the intensity that defined Howland ball. When poor effort becomes the rule instead of the exception, then quit can be applied.

I’m not sure what it will take to solve this. By far the biggest challenge of Howland’s career (a much bigger one than building from scratch).

 I saw the game on ESPNU and saw asome Bruins with bags over their heads. Where is our so-called great defense? When we get behind we do not have the offense to catch up. A goal of a winning record does not seem attainable but I hope I am wrong.

I think we played pretty well most of the first half…and then LB made their run in the last couple minutes, and then it seemed like the players just quit playing defense. We played terrible defense in the second half in both transition and in the half-court. The offense picked up towards the end, but any chance of a comeback was snuffed by the lack of defense.

Morgan got some minutes, but he was lost on defense and not aggressive enough on offense.

Our two dependable players are Gordon and Nelson, but Howland hasn’t found a way to play them both at the same time.

…We lost because we were not the better team. We lost because we have less talent. I’ve seen enough. Our Sophomore class, rated extremely high on its way in, is a bust. This has nothing to do with rotation, or experience, or chemistry. It’s about talent and heart and desire. These guys have very little of it. Our freshmen class I haven’t seen enough to render a verdict. Our upperclassmen are fine for what they are — solid role players who should be coming off the bench to spell the talent and battle tough and pick up fouls. The telling sign is the defense. Even a lousy talent can hustle to cut of lanes and block the baseline. These guys can’t even do that.

I’ve been watching UCLA basketball for 30-plus years. I’ve seen us lose to such a collection of lame teams, from lame conferences ALL IN ONE PRE-SEASON. We’re just not good. I’m not even mad. Seriously. This team is playing to its potential. What’s to be mad about. I still believe in Howland. But he’s got his work cut out for him.

thank God. this is not fun.

i’m glad to see that there appears to be more of an openness to questioning CBH here. at this point i’m fully behind him so don’t get me wrong. what i would like to see is some dialog about what is going on with this program. i think it starts with the coach.

i believe we underperformed last year and we are underperforming this year. even in a “rebuilding” year we should not be playing this poorly IMHO. i’m worried CBH is losing his touch.

If so, are they on the schedule? We could play and lose to them making it a Tri-fecta!

…rebuilding means no Final Four; no Elite 8; no Sweet 16 even. It doesn’t mean losing to CSUF, CSULB, etc. etc. etc. all in the same season — even in the pre-season. At what point do we look at the performance on the court and except it for what it is? It’s like trying to argue that Kevin Craft is capable of being Tim Tebow if only CRN would reshuffle the OL just so. Actually, my analogy is unfair to Craft because at least the kid has heart and guts. Our Ben-Ball guys should be embarrassed to wear a UCLA uniform that loses to a bunch of teams such as the ones we’ve lost to this pre-season.

My analysis is based in large part on the fact that I believe in our coach so much, given his history with us and at Pitt. On what other universe would all of us accept these losses without calling for the coach’s head. No other universe.

Losing to Portland, understandable. Butler, understandable. Long Beach State, no justification whatsoever. Period. Under any circumstances.
It is not talent generally. It is the pg position. With DC here, same team, we hit the sweet 16. JA is getting 35 min because his seeing the light is the only hope we have. And it is not a comforting hope.

Am not sure that even the optimism of meriones can get me out of this depression

we have no depth at guard. Lee is at best an average starting guard in the Pac 10, but JA is clearly a backup at best. We don’t have a good enough roster to win more than half our games from what I can see.

This team is dreadfully unbalanced with way to many front court players and not enough guards.

You could make some adjustments, like playing a zone to make up for your team that is extremely overbalanced withfront court, but that is something Howland won’t do, and its not going to do that much anyway if we can’t score.

Other than that, you can’t create guards that aren’t there, so I don’t think there is much to say. I don’t see any options with this roster.

I really am discouraged.

I thought it didn’t matter what sport we were talking about; UCLA players do not get dissed. "…although I am sure the men’s soccer team will find a way to choke this season too) does not sound like you N. Is there something I should know about UCLA men’s soccer (other than maybe they’ve lost some matches)?

Was upset that UCLA players disrespected him after he was at the UCLA/USC game wearing a USC jersey while committed to the bruins.

He was decommitted anyway if he was wearing their jersey to the game. Can’t believe he is complaining about disrespected for wearing USC jerseys to the USC/UCLA game while still a UCLA committ. What a sense of entitlement. He will fit right in.

I started at UCLA in the late 80s, and I can’t remember a worse 4 days. I feel like I’ve been stomach punched. I wateched 15 minutes of the hoops game today and saw so many easy layups and so much nonexistent post defense that I could watch no more. It was 28-28 when I turned it off, but I could have written the ending.

This team thus far has little skill on offense—and I mean the whole of offense—poor shooting, porr feel for the game, poor ball movement, no individual shot creation, little sense of where their teammates are. It’s an offensive void I cannot fathom exists at UCLA.

Defensively, I can’t tell whether it’s lack of effort of lack of understanding of defensive principles, but we leave the other team with tons of open looks, whether it’s from 2 feet or 22 feet. We lack talent, we lack desire, we lack basketball savvy. It’s ugly to watch.

Vince Young just punked Matt Leinart again with a last-minute, 99-yard, game ending drive to win AGAIN

I work w/ a bunch of USC and CSULB grads; this week would’ve been HELL for me. To hear it from 2 different sets of alums re: 2 different sports in 1 weekend—arg! What’s our horrendous basketball showing thus far gonna do to recruiting? That’s what worries me right now. Our b-ball season is gonna be what it’s gonna be, but what are the highly touted recruits gonna thing? The knack on Howland was always that his d-oriented b-ball was “boring,” but the team was winning and he was producing NBA draft 1st rounders. We’re not bound to have any of that this season, so yeah, I’m pretty concerned about the immediate future of the b-ball team right about now. I’m hoping the team will only get better as the season progresses, but seriously, how are we gonna win the recruiting war w/ schools like Kansas, Kentucky, NC, and even Washington out there?

I have been thinking about this topic since last night’s horseshit move by Cheatey Petey, and the prospect of turning on ESPNU at 11:30 to see the battle for 7th place in the 76 “Classic”. My son is a collegiate baseball player. He and other student-athletes (in the true sense of the word) sacrifice a lot in terms of social life to balance their books and team obligations. This certainly holds true for the student-athletes who proudly wear the Blue and Gold for the so-called “minor” sports.

It is these “minor” sports which by and large enabled UCLA to put a different color C on their uniforms for hitting the 100 championship milestone.

In football and basketball, our teams have basically become unwatchable. I do watch, because I am a Bruin fan. My first taste of $C was my freshman year, 67 when UCLA lost by 1 point in the Beban-Simpson game at the Coliseum. I had to weave my way back through a bunch of drunken shitheads pouring it on those of us who were proudly wearing our colors, win or lose. My lifelong hatred for the trOJans began that day, and has not abated.

The football team gave $C the opportunity to show their fucking lack of class, and they took it. The basketball team wound up finishing 8th (!!).

But, on this same weekend, the UCLA women’s soccer team came from behind to earn their place for the 7th straight time in the final four. And the men’s water polo team came from a 4th seed to win a place in the final four.

At this writing, the men’s soccer team has come from behind to lead at half time. As the 6th seed in the tourney, it is hard to see how they can be called choke artists before the fact.

What have these student-athletes done to deserve our disrespect? NOTHING.

We could presumably compete at $C’s level in football, by following Cheatey Petey’s lead and recruite thugs and low-lifes who don’t give a shit about sportsmanship or about anything except their chance to play on Sunday in the future.

We could also compete at the highest level in basketball, by following the Calipari route.

I just don’t see how that is a good trade-off.

It was very hard to sit through the football and basketball telecasts this weekend. But to say this was the worst weekend in UCLA athletics seems extreme.

Our student-athletes who are playing with class and effort deserve our support. Go water polo, go soccer, go Bruins now and forever !!

In fact the only time I ever root against UCLA is when CSULB plays them. This is most often in non-revenue sports.
Reference a previous poster, yes I am actually jealous that I was not nearly a good enough student to be accepted into UCLA. In fact, I didn’t even bother applying, as my GPA and SAT’s were not even in the ballpark. I accepted the fact that I was unable to follow in my father’s footsteps and attend the school I loved (still do) from the time I was about 10 in 1974.

UCLA used to regularly beat CSULB in football in the 80’s, as CSULB scheduled this game to fund the rest of the football season. The recruiting capacity and stature of the program was unable to hold a candle to Westwood. That was OK, though, as The Beach dropped the sport one season after coach George Allen died (on new years day, if I recall – as in bowl day).

CSULB fans suffer the arrogant indignity of listening to the UCSB “fans” chant “STATE SCHOOL” during basketball games. This chant is particularly irritating, as the is a sense of entitlement that the Gaucho fans are celebrating the lack of scholastic accomplishments that us State Schoolers had.

This is a big win for the 49ers today, but I would never be an SC punk rejoicing a victory in someone’s face. That would smack of the actions of a petulant 18 – 22 year old private school football player. I am proud that the 49ers notched the first ever victory against the UCLA basketball team. CSULB will likely never win an NCAA mens basketball championship. They will always be unable to recruit against most colleges, and when they do make it to the NCAA tournament, from which they are invariably eliminated in the first round, the coach is usually lured away by a wealthier college.

There should be no shame in losing to CSULB this year, however. As opposed to the posting of another here, the 49ers are picked to win the Big West this season. They returned 3 starting Freshmen from last seasons team that contested for the Big West title. This team will likely make the NCAA tournament, and will likely lose the first round game as they will be no higher than a 12 seed, which means they will play a top 25 team in the first round.

It would be a reach for me to ask that UCLA fans support CSULB. Tolerate us, but please try to keep from throwing down the “State School Loser” attitudes that some people toss about. Your scholastic achievements are to be commended, but wear them proudly, and without arrogance. It is more fitting. My father wore his lifelong accomplishments comfortably, like a good pair of jeans. I believe that you can represent better with that comfortable attitude.

But make no mistake about it, I will take my state school education over private school learning every day of the week. I certainly could have applied and likely been accepted to the local private school, but why would I want a substandard education?

strong wins during what must have been a weekend full of distractions for them