Ben Ball Roundup: Missed Warning Signs Around Gordon
by Nestor on Dec 3, 2009 6:26 AM PST
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PrintGuess we all missed the warning signs last March, following the loss against Villanova:
Freshman forward Drew Gordon said Howland should reconsider his offensive approach to suit the talents of his team.
Gordon said he would like to see UCLA turn into an "up-and-down" team along the lines of the Villanova squad that pounded out an 89-69 victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.
"In all honesty, I think he's going to have to change a couple of things," Gordon said. "I think the mentality of the team next year is we don't work well in the half-court set. We're used to the run-and-gun. We're not programmed into slow-grinding it out there."
That was from Mark Saxon in the OC Register. I am guessing at the time lot of us probably dismissed that report as an attempt by a local reporter to accentuate the negative within the UCLA basketball program, and didn't post about it. If so, then it's a big warning sign perhaps we should have taken note of at the time.
Reading Gordon's comments though it is certainly stunning to see how this kid was so out of it. Think about it. A freaking freshmen was questioning the offensive approach of a head coach who had taken his team to 3 Final-4s, 2 Sweet-16s, and was the COY in 3 different conferences. BTW, it is hilarious to hear these kids and others talk about how they want to "run and gun" more, completely ignoring the basic concept that if they actually played fundamental defense and rebounded with intensity, that would lead the opportunity to run and gun it on the other end.
That article also had the following quote from Malcolm Lee:
Lee said he would like to see the Bruins press more when they are playing defense, a ploy that was not particularly effective against Villanova.
"Just speed up the game a little bit," Lee said.
Well, not sure what Lee meant at the time. For now, I hope Lee is taking a cue from what happened to Gordon. Lee has the athleticism and physical tools to perhaps emerge as another version of RW and AA. However, he needs to get it through his head that if he wants to have the same legacy as those two Ben Ball warriors, he will need to start by learning to play Howland's "insider-the-jersey" defensive approach with intense on-ball defense. Frankly haven't seen any signs of that yet from Lee or Anderson this year. I hope they can find withing themselves the passion and intensity to play that kind of defense because if they don't it is not going to matter whether we play man-to-man or zone, we are going to keep struggling on the court.
As for current news, RN is banged up a bit but TH is on schedule to return for Kansas game:
LOS ANGELES - Freshman forward/center Reeves Nelson hyperextended his right knee yesterday and was unable to finish practice. He had an MRI late Tuesday night and the results that were revealed this afternoon were negative. He did not practice today and will miss tomorrow's practice as well. He is slated to return to practice on Friday, Dec. 4, two days before UCLA hosts No. 1 Kansas as part of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. Nelson is slated to start his first collegiate game this weekend with the departure of sophomore Drew Gordon.
LOS ANGELES - Freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt returned to practice yesterday for the first time since Nov. 7 when an MRI confirmed (on Nov. 8) that he had a stress reaction in his right tibia. Honeycutt practiced for 30 minutes on Tuesday with full contact and for 45 minutes today. The plan is to increase his practice time by 15 minutes each day till Saturday when he will go for an hour and a half. He should be available to play for the Bruins when they host No. 1 Kansas as part of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. Honeycutt has missed the first six games of the 2009-10 season.
Hopefully RN heals up soon. He seems like a tough kid. So my gut tells me he will be ready to go. We will have nothing to lose on Sun at this point. I just want to see these guys come out and play with passion, show all out hustle on the court by diving after loose balls, rebound their hearts out, and yeah play defense as it meant to be in Ben Ball. That would be a good restart for rest of the season.
GO BRUINS.
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 don't ever remember...
…JF, AA, AA2, LRMAM, RH, DT, RW, JS, CB, or DC questioning our playing style in the media. Perhaps it’s time to clean house with the sophomores? I know that sounds drastic, but maybe DG was right. Perhaps CBH didn’t recruit the right guys.
On the plus-side, I think our freshman ARE the right guys. At least they are keeping their traps shut.
In fairness
We did hear the typical grumbling from KL, JF and AA’s parents about Howland’s offense during NBA draft process. Yet all of that seem moot considering how they remain involved with our program even after they got drafted. They have been steadfast supporters of Howland and UCLA basketball. Those reservations came across as nothing more than overzealous parents marketing their kids.
Nothing like the nonsense coming out of the mouths of Gordon, Lee and Holiday (who was in denial about his “defensive” effort after getting torched by Klay Thompson at Pauley).
Agreed
But not just parents, agents as well. Agents will take ANY angle to show their player is better than player X.
Maybe we are missing another warning sign
We ourselves have “discussed” Howland’s offense. And, while I agree that no player, much less a freshman, should question their coach, can it be DG has a point?
My point is this: We do live in an age of prima donnas. Some coaches, Carroll, Calipari, etc, have had great success by allowing their athletes to do as they please in return for athletic performances. I am not suggesting we hand over the asylum mind you. But, it could very well be that if Howland does not make the offense more fun to watch (and therefore more fun to play in), the well could run dry in the world of recruiting.
Let’s face it. Things have changed since Coach roamed the sidelines. A coach could not afford to stay at home while the recruits came to him, the way Wooden did. A coach can not put his hands on a player the way Bobby Knight did. And, apparently you cannot ask a highly touted recruit to go “all work, and no play.”
We all know that these days a coach has to be part psychologist. And you must provide positive reinforcement to reward good behavior. It is clear that kids these days want to score with high flying dunks and ESPN highlight reels. That is not in and of itself, contrary to our goals of competing year in and year out for Pac 10 and National Championships.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Not really
If you want to follow a team where players have “fun” then you can watch the tapes of UCLA teams under Lavin. Oh, and please don’t bring up the names of Carroll and Calipari on the kind of coaches we need to bring in.
Just because we are experiencing adversity after few games doesn’t mean we change the foundation of program and emulate morally corrupt ones that litter the landscape of college athletics. That’s insulting to the legacy of UCLA’s athletic program.
Agree. I'm very happy with the way CBH has been running the show, despite our current troubles.
While it would be beneficial for Howland to be open-minded about some things (perhaps regarding game strategy), I would rather field a crappy team than have our coach pander to spoiled, entitled kids. The fact of the matter is, CBH may teach a “boring” style of basketball, but he actually gives his players substantive lessons which translate into their professional careers. Can you name a coach whose recent players have as much success as CBH’s does?
That success doesn’t come without discipline and “discomforts” that the students may not like, but in the end, it’s for their own good. Our Ben Ball Warriors in the NBA don’t just coincidentally happen to be studs because they were blue chippers coming into college, but because of what they learn under CBH. Yes it may not appear glorious (although I would argue that three Final Fours in a row is pretty damn glorious), but if I were an athletic but unpolished baller, I would want to play for CBH. His results speak for themselves.
Short term pain, long term gain – one of the most basic economic principles, but one of the most important. Young men, developing character and learning under CBH is one of the best investments you can make for your basketball career. So suck it up and stop looking for instant gratification.
They gave up almost 90 points in that game
And they’re talking about offense. If that doesn’t speak volumes about misplaced priorities, I don’t know what does.
You guys missed the point entirely.
I said point blank, I was not suggesting we hand the asylum over to the lunatics; ie, going after coaches like Carroll and Calipari. Bunz, you echo my comments by stating that Howland can be more open minded.
The point is that an exciting offense is the carrot you can use to get the donkey to pull the cart. Let’s face it, there are two ways to motivate the donkey, the carrot or the whip. The whip is the old way of doing things. I am also not saying we have to play all offense and no defense. What I’m saying is there has to be some fun to balance out all the work.
Phil Jackson seems to understand this and he’s done alright.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Well first of all I wasn't talking to you
Was referring to the original post with the DG and ML quotes and I used this as a reply because N was talking about DG wanting to change what the program was doing offensively after a loss which was an utter defensive failure.
Phil Jackson is not the coach you want to cite if we’re going to talk about defense. He has long been known as a coach that just expects you to “get it” on defense and he barely concentrates on it. Even when he did before last season, he handed that duty off to an assistant. He is afforded this luxury because of his penchant for older and more experienced players who know how to play D from their years in the NBA, or because of coaches like CBH who prepare young players for the next level on the defensive end. Phil Jackson gets a lot of credit as a motivator. He does not have the burden of teaching the fundamentals the way CBH does, so comparing them doesn’t make sense.
I’m concerned with people that continuously harp on the offense without acknowledging that this year’s team and certain members of last year’s team have not put forth the requisite effort on the defensive end. bluebland sums it up quite nicely below. There is no offense that excites me that starts with us taking the ball out of bounds. None.
Any team that plays great defense
Will play a slower game. If it takes the opponent 30 seconds to shoot instead of 10, it’s a slower game.
“Up and down” means taking quick shots and giving up quick shots. Now if you’re talking about fastbreaks, which have been a major staple of our team when we’ve had the guys to run it (like the previous 2-3 years), they come from rebounding and turnovers.
Taking quick shots when they’re not good shots is referred to as “jacking it up.” I do not enjoy watching a jack-it-up offense.
well...
A ‘great’ defensive team presumably is one that doesn’t give up many points per possession.
You can do that by holding opponents at bay for an entire shot clock and forcing a bad shot – as is our M.O. – but you could also ‘gamble’ more on defense, playing more aggressively, pressing and attempting to get steals. That could be an equally valid ‘great’ defensive team, but would definitely lead to a faster paced game.
not equally valid
But getting steals is not a reliable system against good, disciplined teams. It can bully lesser teams into early death, but it can be defeated with patience and converted layups.
Yes
lets encourage prima donna behavior in the sports world why don’t we. No need to buck that trend at all.
DG has a point? Seriously!?!
I’d rather be fair to middling and have guys on my team that I can proudly admit to rooting for than win at any cost. If the new reality in college basketball is to prostrate ourselves to selfish teens and make things fun for their (and our) short term benefit, then I’m fine with being fair to middling.
And yes, I do like my view from up here on my moral high ground.
Oh UCLA you sweet bitch, you've BRUINed me for anything else.
Is there more room up at the moral high ground?
I will gladly watch the Bruins from there
another big miss
I am not suggesting we hand over the asylum mind you.
We all know that these days a coach has to be part psychologist. And you must provide positive reinforcement to reward good behavior. It is clear that kids these days want to score with high flying dunks and ESPN highlight reels. That is not in and of itself, contrary to our goals of competing year in and year out for Pac 10 and National Championships.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
I don't think
we give players like that an inch. I think any player worth their salt will know that if you come to UCLA and you’re successful, you’re gonna make that paper in the League. No part time psychologists. No babysitters. You’re saying don’t hand over the asylum, I am saying the player should always have little to no say in how the team is run at all. What the coach says goes, and if you don’t like it there might be another school out there for you that will facilitate all of your dunking fantasies.
Oh UCLA you sweet bitch, you've BRUINed me for anything else.
CBH has become a victim of his own success
Not everything Ithat follows is so cut and dried, but consider my point…
We keep contrasting the approach and attitude of a player like Drew Gordon to the attitude of players like AA, PAA, DC, LRMAM, LMR, etc. The differences are easy to see. I am discouraged with Gordon for his attitude, and at a certain level, I am regretful that a player with Gordon’s talent doesn’t have AA’s or DC’s work ethic and team-first approach, as that would be an awesome combination and a great asset for our team. To me, though, a bigger question is why we ended up with an attitude like Gordon’s in our program, and why is appears so hard right now to get some of our younger players or new recruits to buy into CBH’s system.
My answer is that it’s CBH’s fault. He has changed the dynamic of UCLA basketball.
I think it is key to realize the differences in UCLA basketball when CBH took over and where it is now. When CBH took over, we were wallowing in the ashes left over from the arson job CHP left behind. Aside from tradition, there was nothing particularly distinctive about coming to UCLA at that time, and tradition only meant stuff to fans and alums, not to 17 year old basketball prodigies. Ask Bill Walton. As such, the first players CBH got were ones who were willing to put their neck out and try something new. Obviously they had skill to play D-1 BBall, but they also had something in their makeup that made them want to come to UCLA for what if offered at the time – a new coach, a defensive hard nosed system, a chance to rebuild a program. I liken it to Brian Price’s attitude when picking UCLA over $c* and its limos. As a result, we got players with attitudes and work ethics like JF and AA and LMR and RW. Granted, all good players, and some of them could have gone to higher profile programs like the Standard, Duke, Mich St, etc. But something in them made them choose UCLA. Those names, those attitudes, and CBH’s system produced results that speak for themselves. Still, with the exception of KL (and we know why he was different), the biggest name players in the country, the ones who saw college as a mere stepping stone to the NBA, the ME-first guys, didn’t come to UCLA those first formative years of CBH’s reign. They still wanted the biggest flashiest stages that would showcase themselves first.
Jump forward a few years. UCLA is now a marquis program going to 3 straight Final 4’s and sending multiple players, some previously unheralded (LRMAM, RW), to the NBA lottery and draft each year. UCLA is now that high profile program that was going to get the high school stars lots of press and TV time. UCLA is no longer just a place to learn basetball, it is now an opportunity. Those big time HS stars who saw NBA first, and team and personal development second, now looked at UCLA differently. Guys like Holliday and Gordon, who never would have given UCLA a thought in CBH’s first year or two, now saw UCLA as their own personal stepping stone to the NBA, even to the degree where they believed UCLA’s system would change for them, and not vice-versa. I can’t blame the players for looking at UCLA that way, same as I can’t blame CBH for bringing them in. On the surface, they seemed like great kids and their BBall talent was something any coach would have killed for. It is in retrospect that we are seeing now the differences between the mindset of an Arron Afflalo and Darren Collison compared to these new guys, and the effect that is now having on UCLA basketball.
Going forward, it will be critical for UCLA and CBH to recognize the culture shift around our program and learn from it. We need to separate the Hollidays and Gordons from the true BB Warriors who rebuilt this program a few years ago – because CBH and his philosophy are here to stay. Granted, I think CBH could stand a touch more flexibility, but the main thing is finding guys with heart like LMR and PAA, and hidden talent like LRMAM and RW, and upside like DC and AA, and devotion to a program and its history like KL. That is what returned us to prominence, and that is what is lacking in our current slip. It remains to be seen where our current players fit. I hope guys like RN and ML and JA and TH and MM and the others we have now and on the way are coming to UCLA for the team, and not simply for themselves.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
by gbruin on Dec 3, 2009 9:31 AM PST reply actions 2 recs
Well said
CBH needs to constantly rekindle the fire and drive to reach the top. We must avoid a sense that we deserve PAC-10 titles and the like. Every game of every season must be earned like they were earned in those early seasons.
Very good point
Picking UCLA over other options before the Final Four runs and 30 win seasons is a very different thing than picking UCLA today. I think it’s becoming more and more obvious that our “stellar” recruiting class of JH, DG, ML, JMM and JA came in asking “what can UCLA do for me?”
done
Sorry to be so long winded in a reply. LV states it as clearly and much more succinctly! What is the saying, brevity is not in the soul of a twit…or something like that.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Yes
We requested him to repost it because it is something that needed to stand out.
classof67, it appears you don’t really not know how this community words. I’d advise that you step back, and see how it works before you participate in it. Observe how others make substantive contributions before jumping in it.
No big deal to me
I think you read the fanpost article first, then saw the same thing here as a comment. My comment here came first, then I revised it a bit for a separate fanpost when N asked me to.
For the record, I haven’t written this on any other thread here at BN, and BN is my only blog.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
I don't understand
why any flashy, me-first athlete with no interest in playing defense would look at CBH’s teams over the past few years and suddenly see UCLA as a place to be.
It’s been argued in other posts that CBH’s style of play discourages elite offensive players from coming to UCLA because they don’t want to buckle down and play team defense and don’t want to play methodical offense. Now we are apparently saying that we have to weed out such players from our recruiting because these players look at our success and see UCLA as a stepping stone?
This argument doesn’t make sense to me.
Well our success in Howland's first few season
Certainly seemed to have attracted some players who thought they would be able to come in and coast to success (which was a different mindset from the kids from his first two classes). These players were flashy recruits who came in with lot more hype and handlers around them, and they certainly thought UCLA would be a stepping stone on their way to pimping their rides and cribs in the NBA.
A geezerly observation
We had a team a few years ago (when I was a senior in high school) that decided to do something unprecedented. We went to a full court zone press for the entire game, every game. That DEFENSE was intended to drive our offense. It didn’t just generate turnovers, it generated transition basketball, where our smaller, faster, quicker guys prevailed. What the defense did was invariably to drive a big UCLA run. That team featured a 6’5" center, a 6’5" forward, a 6’3" forward, a 6’2" guard, and our leading scorer was a 6’1" guard. That team went 30-0.
That defense was ruthless and relentless. It got beat sometimes for easy baskets, but it generally upped the tempo of the game.
Coach Howland uses defense similarly, in my opinion. I understand that when his defense forces a turnover, our guys do not necessarily go into a deliberate offensive mode, but look first for a faxt break. If our young guys want to get into an up-tempo streetball mode, then they have to start with the tough defense that Coach Howland is trying to teach. At least that’s the way I see it.
Wow, I agree with this opinion completely
I’m approaching geezerhood way too quickly for my own liking.
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