Explaining his view of the game and our mistakes on defense. Giving the Cougs the credit they deserve. Can’t believe they cut off his interview, though. Bad call Fox.

Not counting the Lavin rejct first year of Howland, this is the first Howland team that seems to regress every week. Having seen all their games from the first week to now, I cannot recall a Howland team playing progressively poorer as the year went on…My own opinion is the team is sorely lacking talent. Outside of Collison (a very late first round draft choice), I doubt any of the players would start at North Carolina or Ucon, etc. The freshmen have significantly regressed since January. Can you think of a single frosh who has meaningfully contributed since Janauary? The lack of intensity as reflected by the usual high shooting percentage of the opponents, the lack of rebounding (even on the defensive glass), the lack of apparent urgency is even more disturbing. While I suspect this is due in part to a lack of on court leadership, I wonder if there is some team dissension or disconnect between the upper classmen and frosh…Please do not take this as a criticism of Howland, What he has done for this program is incredible, but it appears that this year’s team has too many physical and emotional holes….Without a competent point guard, we may be seeing two year downtrend????

There are games where the comebacks are nice and welcome. This is a game where they didn’t show up and didn’t show much intensity for about half the game, it’s not that exciting that they actually brought intensity the last few minutes.

Before the game today, the spirit squad lectured the Den on how we were the quietest group in 10 years. There were a couple of new pre-game videos today, including one with Darren Collison saying we were going to “eat the Cougars for breakfast.” Perhaps that provided extra motivation for their hot start? Maybe, maybe not.

I thought we were really fortunate to come out of the first half tied. During the first half , there were some bad calls that went WSU’s way and I have never seen Ben Howland so upset. He and the bench were actually asked to sit down several times throughout the second half. While being there live didn’t give us the benefit of replays, I thought there were a lot of fouls in the second half that should’ve been called, including two fouls that would’ve sent Jerime Anderson to the line twice and the WSU player’s flying elbows (In any conference but the Pac-10, that player probably would’ve gotten a T or an ejection). I thought Malcolm Lee played great defense but got called for a non-foul on Rochestie that gave him his fourth foul, and his block on Aaron Baynes looked pretty clean from the Den.

The lack of defensive intensity really bothered me. I never thought our offense was an issue, but there was one extremely frustrating play that ended up in a 5-point swing late in the second half. Josh Shipp should have (and could have) threw it down hard, which would’ve cut the deficit to 3 AND energized the crowd. I also thought Baynes should’ve fouled out earlier. There was one play that looked suspiciously like an over-the-back foul but the refs called an offensive interference. I don’t know what it actually was but without the benefit of replays, I only go by what I see. A lot of the Den was mad at the refs for the 5 out of bounds play, but I thought there were only 2 that should’ve gone our way. Still, it was very frustrating.

Props to Darren and Nikola for their hard-fought effort. Josh Shipp should really learn how to finish around the basket. Missing layups hurts a lot more than missing 3’s.

Jrue Holiday played with an absolute lack of intensity. On one defensive sequence, Jrue and another WSU player were fighting for the ball underneath WSU’s basket. Jrue seriously looked like he gave up, and the WSU player scored an easy layup.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to drop out of the rankings after today, and even if we win out, I don’t think we’ll be back in the top 20 again (unless we win the Pac-10 Tourney).

I’ve already accepted in my mind that we’re gonna be shipped into the same bracket as the overall number 1 pick. Why? We got 3 consective final 4’s. I see the committee saying “Make those M.F’s EARN it!”. No more benefit of the doubt this year. Fine with me. Besides, I don’t NEED any breaks.

Next, in the name of getting ready for the tornament, I’d like to see some experimenting on defense with way more press action, traps, deflections… which lead to transition buckets. I’m challenging Ben to challenge our boys to keep our opponets under 20 points per half. ok… 25 max. We do THAT, and our wins will be automatic (especially if we push steals to the hole, and nix trying to set-up our so-called offense. DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE. Period. Defense.

Finally… if I’m Ben, I make that Pac-10 tournament our SERIOUS dress rehearsal.
Be STILL are a very dangerous team that even the coaches of the top 4 seeds don’t really wanna see. Why? 1. Ben Howland. 2. We’ve shown enough flashes of brilliance this season to be dangerous in a 1 and Done tournament… even if we haven’t beat a ranked team this year. 3. Even LAVIN had the ability to SURPRISE the number 1 ranked team in the country. We’re UCLA, dammit. THE College Basketball Program of the NCAA.

But, man, after these losses, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I don’t believe UCLA is out talented by any of the teams on the schedule. I understand L’s at UW, UT, UA – those are tough games. But at home vs. ASU, WSU? Mich? We have not seen that type of inconsistency in 2+ years. It may have been too much to ask of DC to keep this team on such a high level when you lose KL, RW, and LRMAM. Not saying this team can’t do some damage the rest of the year, but unless they find that defensive focus and intensity for 40 minutes, and find a “go to” guy on offense when we struggle; it could be an early end to the season. Another gut check road trip coming up this week.

With a strong finish, they may make the tournament yet. They’ve looked uncharacteristically spotty this year, though, don’t think they’ll be up to it.

I’m behind CBH and our team, but today was not a showcase of the kind of effort that they are capable of. The frustrating thing is that I feel like our level of talent and experience should keep us from losing to teams like WSU. Rochestie was just unconscious today, and it really made me miss having RW or LRMAM to lock him down. However, the defensive intensity that I saw the last 2 minutes make me think we SHOULD have been doing a better job the other 38 minutes of the game.

Lazy layups and lack of defense really killed it for us today. There were positive moments in the game from ND I think, and PAAputting up another double double, however I dont take much comfort in our “almost comeback.” I’ll take a Gonazaga moment when we’re getting beat in every possible way throughout the entire game and we hang tough and get down and dirty to fight for the win. However, we shouldn’t have even been in that kind of position today…to be behind in a HOME gamewhere we SHOULD have won and outclassed our opponent. This team has the talent to be much better, but theyre letting their moments and opportunities slip them by. Our run for a 4th straight Pac 10 crown looks to be getting dimmer and dimmer

This team has been very inconsistent late in the season. There are many possible reasons why this is so. The first thing is there does not appear to be a consistent on-the-court leader for the team. Collison is supposed to be that guy, but he cannot do it alone, and there were times when he couldn’t do it because of the heavy minutes he logged. No other player has really stepped up.

The loss of so many good players to the NBA hurt the team in many areas, and it was unreasonable to expect other players to just suddenly step into that void. We all wanted Holiday to fill up the scoring that Love’s absence left, but how often are you gonna get that kind of consistent performance from an incoming freshman? The one that really hurt is losing Luc Richard, because he did a lot of the little things that do not show up on the scoreboard with his basketball smarts. It was unrealistic to expect Keefe to suddenly take his place, or even the freshman Gordon. Bobo has not been able to replace Mata’s contributions.

The freshmen inconsistency has been most alarming, especially among the second unit. They have been prone to turnovers and defensive lapses, just like the others. Just because there are 3 seniors, we expected them all to step up to be leaders, but I don’t think any of them are the vocal, on-court leaders that UCLA has had in the past with players like Thompson, Farmar, Afflalo, even Love. Also, the freshmen have deferred to the upperclassmen on practically every play. None of them have been assertive in creating offensive for themselves or forcing the action defensively.

The focus and lack of intensity, especially on the defensive end is not because of coaching. It seems that this team has been more prone to defensive lapses than any other recent UCLA team. That’s on the players and they know it. For stretches at a time they do not play UCLA basketball, which is the most frustrating aspect of their struggles. The players get too tentative trying to play Howland basketball instead of just playing it.

The solution to all of their problems starts with defense. If they bring it on that end of the floor, then they have nothing to worry about… Too often this season even after they score, I hope that UCLA can get a stop. This is in contrast to past years where after they scored, I knew they were gonna get a stop. If they bring the defensive intensity from start to finish, the team will do fine. The question of course, is when they’re gonna start doing it again?

Can we talk about his troubles without “going negative” on him? He seems like a great kid and, at times, a phenomenal talent. I just want to know what the deal is.

so going off of the comments here:

It’s a bit worrisome that we are still this inconsistent relatively late in the season. To be fair, developing freshman into championship caliber takes more than a year… keep in mind that they have to acclimate to college environment as well.

Kevin Love had the fortune of being the only really new guy, with the rest of the team already “developed” and in the mindset. But this year we lost our defensive glue in Luc, and Westbrook, and Love—3 starters. I don’t know about next year either, since we’ll lose Collison and Aboya.

but we could sure use a big favor from the both of them.

Was just atrocious all game. Giving up 58% shooting from the field is just plain bad. Our offense was excellent again, against a good WSU defense (but not a great one, they lost a lot of talent too)…. but we’ve been playing like UNC last year – great offense, poor defense.

That said, people need to stop having unreasonable expectations of our freshmen. As I’ve posted elsewhere before, freshmen coming in and dominating are NOT the norm. Outside of Carmelo, no freshmen have come in and been the key player in winning a championship. Rose and Oden took their teams to the championship game, but that ignores the fact that Oden came in with a great recruiting class, Rose came onto an experienced athletic team with lots of seniors, and that all 3 of those names are once in a generation kind of talents.

Think of all the great player’s we’ve seen over these last few years that came in as freshmen phenoms. Durant? Clobbered by SUC in the 2nd round. Beasley? Lost in the 2nd round.

It took Kansas’s #1 ranked class of 2005 a whole 3 years to make it to a final four and win a championship. UNC’s #4 ranked 2005 and #1 ranked 2006 class took 3 years to make it to a final four… where they were soundly blown out by Kansas. You can’t look at our class and say they’ve been a dissapointment when they haven’t played a full year yet. You have to look at it years from now to even be a fair judge of this.

but not in any player, the team or the coach. When you have such high expectations, losses are that much harder to take. But trust me, we are spoiled fans and we are not going to lower expectations. This team is not as strong as last year and there is more parity in the Pac 10 as well. I am always surprised how good our stat line looks in our losses. With the exception of the loss to Arizona, our “problem” seems to be finishing the last 5 minutes. I didn’t take the time to reconstruct the losses, but I believe we were leading at the 5 minute mark in each. I am more disappointed in the empty seats at Pauley. I just don’t get it. A top 25 team late in the season battling for 1st place, and we’re not packing them in? What gives?

- Why did we not try to take it to Baynes to draw his 4th foul earlier in the 2nd?
- Why did we stop trying to get the ball down low to Aboya in the 2nd?
- Why does it take us so long to get into our offense in the half-court set?
- Why do we (Collison) have such trouble with strong, aggressive guards?
- What happened to our intensity?
- Why is JH ranked so highly in the mock draft? (He has literally disappeared.)

I’m not feeling as disappointed today as I have felt other days (like the 1st ASU game), but I don’t get this team or some of CBH’s decisions (see above). I am not used to his teams being so up and down like we have been this year. And I don’t subscribe to the “we are young” philosophy with 3 veteran starters and others who have been in his program for several years. Sure we need our freshman to perform but we are near the end of the season and I am not seeing the consistency I expected—especially from JH. JA is a mystery to me at this point. And ML’s limited playing time before today is also questionable to me (perhaps having to do with his injury earlier this year). DG brings a lot of energy and athleticism but he is really rough around the edges in his play on both ends of the court and may be a bit too emotional.

I have hope that CBH and the seniors can pull the team together and begin a run starting this week in the tough games in the Bay Area. We shall see. The journey continues…

and fail to help us.

OK its time stop saying what if we had KL,RW,LRBM or AA there gone and not coming back. Lets focuse on the players we have now. stop bring up players we do not have any more.