To "boo" or not to "boo". That is the question
by Bald Eagle on Dec 23, 2009 8:49 AM PST
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Last night, I was one of the 37 Bruin fans who watched the game live from Pauley. At around the 11 minute mark in the Second half, after we went down 8 to a team that IMHO we should have handled easily, and after we allowed another easy basket inside resulting from a blown defensive assignment, I and a few other fans began to "boo" the team. It was tough to watch the past 30 odd minutes of basketball and we were losing to another team at home that we should be beating. Frustration was setting in and I decided to voice it. Loudly.
Many of the fans, mostly geezers and blue hairs sitting in Section 200 with me and my wife, glared judgmentally and even called me out for booing,saying "They're kids, don't boo them." At the request of my wife, I went silent the rest of the game refusing to cheer at all, even as we slowly pulled away in the last 10 minutes of the game.
Which brings me to the following poll question. What do you all think?
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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I heard
Jerime Anderson was atrocious till about 30 min mark of the game. I also heard Dragovic’s stat line is somewhat deceiving because he was lollygagging most of the game defensively until those last 10 mins.
Would love to hear your thoughts. As for booing … I had no problem with the crowd booing Dorrellian football at Rose Bowl. I will leave it at that.
My thoughts
JA was really bad. Very tentative offensively passing up open looks and unable still to create for himself by breaking guys down and finishing around the hoop. And he can’t distribute on the break either. There were a couple of times that we should have had easy transition baskets but he either turned it over (5), or pulled up to run our sets rather than attack and try and finish or go to the line.
He is just not ready to run this team.
I was surprised at how many turnovers ML had. He seemed steady and played within the offense hitting what appeared to be most of his open looks.
I was also surprised at how many points Drago had. He shot some REAL clankers last night but also made some key shots and free throws when it counted most.
The entire first 30 minutes was like a bad heavy weight fight. Slow, plodding lots of mistakes, especially missed assignments by us on D. The Rams were really not much better and were in game mostly because of our lackluster effort.
It seemed like they were much quicker to the loose balls and were tougher than us on the boards most of the night. I couldn’t find any stats for rebounding but I recall they got many more second chance buckets.
Not sure if it was because of Roll’s illness but CBH subbed TH for MR on defense at all the stops in the last 10 minutes. I truly think that was a big key to our shutting them down.
I haven’t given up on Bobo yet. He just hasn’t earned enough playing time to stay in the game long enough to contribute. I think he has some nice post moves and is decent shot blocker which we definately need since our guards have trouble keeping guys in front of them.
RN is a beast and has a solid post game. He needs to play the 4 and start someone else (Bobo?) at the 5.
BL has been unimpressive. Not sure what his role should be going forward. RNis a better option at the 4 right now, so I’m not sure where he fits.
We’ll get there, but its going to be a long hard road!
Interesting point re. Honeycutt
Thanks BE. I heard Lane looked pretty decent though. Wish I had a chance to watch the game. Thanks again for the observations.
Lane is an enigma
bland and vanilla play. Not really athletic ala TH. Hasn’t show lots of offensive skills. Doesn’t have the defensive intensity or nose for rebounding like RN. KInda reminds me of James Keefe!
unfair on JK
unless you mean freshman JK. Senior JK is a lot stronger than BL, it seems to me, and understands the defensive schemes.
by britishbruin on Dec 23, 2009 3:27 PM PST up reply actions
Lane and Honeycutt played very poor
Honeycutt was just out of it, missing two layups and doing nothing else. Lane played very poor D and had one nice tip-in off a miss, but did not look like a ready replacement for our problems at the 4.
Anderson was unbelievably awful until those last 8 minutes when he made some smart offensive plays. His turnovers took 10 years off our lives, and 20 off Howland’s. I would rate Dragovic’s game as a C, since he actually made some shots and free throws, but still played like crap most of the game. Major improvement over the F- he’s been all year.
ML also played poorly, making at least 4 turnovers that were completely unforced. The player of the game should be Reeves Nelson. That’s my take from being there.
who are you booing??? college kids? give me a break.. they are not professionals!!! they got offered scholarships to ucla, wouldnt you take one??
MaltBaa
You offer up comments here as if BN is your personal phone texting tool. If you want to be a contributing member of this community, you need to come with something more once in a while, instead of just throwing up text message style comments. Again, BN is not some message board.
Bald Bruin actually asked a question that deserves a little more reflection than what you just offered. If you don’t want to treat this community and its members with respect, no need to participate in it.
I think you can boo a decision
(going for a field goal, punting, taking a knee at the half) because the players know it isn’t directed at them.
However, I don’t see any reason why you would want to boo an amateur athlete if you really think about it.
"when you've seen how big the world is, how can you make due with this?"
by silverlakebruin on Dec 23, 2009 9:33 AM PST reply actions
Amateurs or professionals
I don’t see the point in booing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen booing help a team. All it does is make you fell better. I wouldn’t tell someone not to boo. They paid money for their ticket and it’s their right to boo if they would like to, but I’ve never seen the benefit of it and wouldn’t boo myself.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 23, 2009 9:43 AM PST reply actions
+1 on the "make you feel better part"
Sorry, booers, it’s not about you. (I have the same feeling about drive by posters who come here to rant and feel better.)
I fully agree that these are OUR kids, they are Bruins and should not be booed.
SPTR’s can be booed, in my book.
And, I would tell people to stop booing our players — in a colorful way.
sjh
Booing an incompetent head coach responsible for a pathetic product
Helps to send a strong message. It did during later years of Karl Dorrell and Steve Lavin. It’s not about booing the players in college football but voicing dissatisfaction about the leadership of the program both on and off (towards AD/Chancellor) off the field.
And ultimately college athletics in many ways is about the alums and students. That’s what makes it different. If not for that we wouldn’t have a community like this. This community is about alums, students and fans who follow UCLA athletics. We see things differently on this.
I'm all for it if
it’s in situations where it’s clearly directed at coaches who have ‘earned’ it – when a coach is shown on the video screen, or in football if fans boo a coach for sending in the kicker rather than going for a short 4th down, etc. Most players, even if unhappy to hear the booing themselves, would hopefully be able to see it’s not directly due to their own actions. I know it’s a very fine line I’m trying to paint, but I see it as a combination of 66’s and Nestor’s views.
Sure it's ok to boo
Just not your own team, unless they do something really, really stupid, like an obvious fake punt from the 20 yard line.
Victory or until next year!
I was at the game
with my wife and son who were as frustrated as I was. I recall a number times CSU out hustled for loose balls. We were all on the verge of booing because of apparent lack of effort, however, did not.
Come to the dark side
booing is cathartic. I sort of believe t hat the team responded to our booing because at that exact time, the guys stepped it up, played some D and mounted their comeback.
You could have...
cheered even harder or started an 8-clap and tried to get everyone in your section up and screaming. I think that motivates the guys even more than booing would.
by King J77 on Dec 23, 2009 11:16 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
-1
so you’re saying we should cheer loudest when our team is playing its worst, and cheer less when our team is playing inspired ball?
by britishbruin on Dec 23, 2009 1:22 PM PST up reply actions
lol
no, you should be cheering regardless. But sometimes, when your team is playing without intensity or energy it does help to cheer a little harder. It usually motivates players to try harder when the crowd is really into it and it almost gives them more energy. Maybe I’m not making any sense but that’s the way I see it.
I don't think you boo the guys.
You can boo the coach, you can boo the sptr’s, you can boo lots of things, but you can’t boo the guys. Especially the students can’t boo fellow students.
I must, alas, boo my geezer brother sjh. Steve, I find it very therapeutic to drop into the BN and rant. If I rant around the house, I get in trouble with Mrs. Fox 71. So I hereby boo your criticism of droppers-in-and-ranters.
Do you really think players can tell the difference
when you are booing the coach or refs and not themselves. Especially when players are as young as our basketball team, I really don’t see how booing helps them. They know what their record is, they know they go to UCLA, and I seriously hope they know things have to change for them to meet their potential.
My vote: "It depends."
I would never boo my own team/school for losing a game or getting beat or losing to a bunch of corrupt “student” athletes who don’t know their baby’s mamas from their free houses.
I would, however, boo an athlete if they appeared to be slacking off or not giving their all. I know this may not always be easy to determine from the stands, but if it’s obvious that someone is not playing to their potential, I’m going to boo them. They’re wasting their time and mine.
yes, the only time I would boo a collegiate payer would becase of a lack of effort
or if they are having clear attitude problems. I wont boo a collegiate player giving that is giving his all, but is just playing poorly. I will however be more inclined to boo baseball players making millions of dollars that are out of shape and playing horrendously.(Andruw Jones)
William Doolittle at your service, a.k.a. will do.
Boo the play
not the player. And, of course, the coaching and the officiating are fair game, IMO.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
Don't Boo the Players
It’s fair to go after the refs or the coach. You have to be very careful when your intent is to boo the coach or his decision because it can come accross negatively to outsiders like the media or potential recruits.
Never have and never will
One of the problems I see with booing college kids is that it’s too often hard to determine the true potential of a team or player, thus it’s hard to know how badly they’re underperforming. In the pros, every player was hand picked from thousands of college players who in turn were hand picked from millions of high school players (i.e. almost every player deserves to be there and is a world-class athlete) and despite this system of weeding out players we still have huge dissappointments amongst top draft picks all the time.
What I’m trying to say here is when certain guys are constantly getting beat on D or not rotating quickly enough, well “certain guys” probably just aren’t laterally quick and try all you want, YOU CAN’T TEACH LATERAL QUICKNESS (sorry about the caps, that was for some drive-by poster yesterday talking without a tinge of irony or sarcasm about how Howland needs to teach our guys athleticism or something to that effect). Similarly, if a guy continuosly turns the ball over, then he probably isn’t and may never be able to cope with the speed of the college game.
In college sports, many of the failings are those of the recruiters and it’s hard to blame them given how inexact their science is. So feeling as I do, I’m with Barnes2JJ about booing slackers but since it’s real tough to tell when the kids are slacking and when they’re just not good enough, I refrain entirely.
On Booing
IMHO, booing players—either side, frankly—is just stinking bad sportsmanship. (Booing bad calls may be in a different catagory. It’s also, admittedly, very difficult not to boo a player who clearly commits an atrocious intentional foul.)
You will rarely get the best out of someone by turning on them and attacking them, and that is especially true with kids. They’re our team, they deserve our support and respect. The opposing team deserves the latter, if only to show that we truly are better than they. If that modicum of respect takes the form of silence, so be it.
Love My Bruins
Don't boo, but understand the urge to
I am also one of the 37 fans who saw this game in Pauley. The first 30 minutes really were embarrassing. Our point guard would lose the handle while dribbling undefended, ML botched several fast break finishes, the whole team was lazy regarding loose balls and rebounding, and the defense was atrocious. It was very hard to watch and not think that the players were not concentrating.
However, because my overall impression is that this team just is not very talented, I refrained from booing them. I think its okay to boo a good player who is not trying. That might inspire them to wake up. However, booing players that just arent very good (ie. JA), is pointless and mean. At that point, you really should only boo bad recruiting, and booing at a game does not achieve that.
In praise of booing
1) if we boo players and embarrass them, they can take it forward as a feeling they never want to have again and can work hard to ensure this
2) if you want the crowd to cheer loudly during impressive runs and moments of extreme hustle, why not boo when people are not giving their all for the cause?
3) I think booing is more energizing for a team than silence. Silence can mean the crowd is small, or is disinterested, or is depressed, or is just not paying attention. I would rather the team know that the crowd thinks that effort needs to improve, rather than just thinking ‘the crowd isn’t into the game tonight’
4) if the crowd is energized and booing, I think it is easier for the crowd to make a lot of noise cheering when the effort improves.
5) if you want to go along and make encouraging noises regardless of a performance, go to a 3rd grade theater production. Maybe some people here think they are ‘kids’, but they are independent young adults, being handed an opportunity thousands of other people would love to have. If they are not living up to their side of that bargain, I think it’s reasonable to hold them accountable.
I want to be clear that results and performance by our players are NOT what I would choose to boo people for. Most of my booing has been directed against opponents, or horrible refereeing decisions. The few times I have ever booed a UCLA team is when they have collectively looked sluggish and lacking effort. I would never boo someone for missing a bunch of free throws; I would boo a team for looking like they are being outhustled on our home court.
strategy
I always defer to the Onion’s ideas about football, such as are brought to mind by your comment and linked to here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/sound_strategy_booed
by britishbruin on Dec 23, 2009 6:12 PM PST up reply actions
Was at the game as well...
…while our group did not boo we were certainly frustrated, as was everyone in Pauley, with the level of effort put forth by the Bruins for the first 30-32 minutes. As has already been said, way too many mental mistakes…Hopefully in time those will be erased…however, the bigger issue, at least for me, was the total lack of heart from the majority of the players, (aside from Nelson, the kid is a blue collar player and it shows and is appreciated).
rant
They play at U-C-L-A damn it! Understand what those four letters mean and represent them the way they DESERVE to be represented! You’re UCLA, you are supposed to handle teams like Colorado State and Fullerton and Long Beach State…
/rant
UCLA - Champions Made Here
lack of effort for 30-32 minutes
warrants booing, shouts of “C’mon, HUSTLE!”, etc
by britishbruin on Dec 24, 2009 4:46 AM PST up reply actions
More on Booing
Personally, I will never boo the players.
However, I have no problem booing poor coaching. The only two times I have boo’d at games was booing at Lavin and Dorrell when it was obvious the booing was directed at them.
by bornagainbruin on Dec 24, 2009 10:25 AM PST reply actions
Not a Howland team
I would not boo a Howland coached team. I didn’t even boo Lavin—I just barfed on the fans sitting in front of me.
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