Basketball: CBH irked by turnovers, focuses on JA

Bumped. Hey, everyone don't forget we have a basketball which I hear is led by some amazing, sharp "shooooooooooooter" named Ragovic. GO BRUINS. -N

Apparently CBH has used the extra rest time between games to work on fundamentals. In particular, he is frustrated with the number of turnovers we are giving up:

"You look at our first four [conference] games and we're shooting the ball well, but the turnover differential is 69-39," Howland said. "So 30 more turnovers. That's a big number."

Part of the turnover differential may be due to our flirtations with zone defense, getting less pressure on the ball and hoping to force poor shots rather than trying to steal the ball; but that is a lot of free shots our opponents are getting on us. More on this after the jump.

Interestingly, while commenting on a number of turnovers due to mental lapses (such as ND giving the ball back to Stanford with an ill-advised full-court pass), CBH is working on basic technique with JA:

Anderson had only two turnovers in the Stanford game. Although Malcolm Lee had seven, Anderson's habit of leaving his feet, then trying to pass, is something player and coach are trying to erase.

"You have to realize that if you keep making the same mistake over and over, you're not a very good learner," Howland said. But he added that "the passes Jerime made at Stanford were good."

This is certainly a complaint that has been raised time and again here on Bruins Nation, so it is comforting to know that CBH is working on ironing out this problem. Unfortunately, the fact that JA has been under CBH's tutelage for over a year without grasping this basic technique issue for a D-I point guard doesn't say much for CBH's player development, and adds fuel to the criticism that CBH did not do very much to develop last year's freshmen (though his comment on JA makes it sound like he hasn't picked up on what the coaches have been telling him for some time).

With the benefit of extra days before the $C game, CBH also felt like he could bring in some old-school 'motivation' to maintain concentration and take care of the ball.

"We play, get a water break, then go again," Honeycutt said. "For every turnover, you ran. If you had four turnovers, you did four up and downs. We'd have a water break and go again."

Though as Nestor already linked, the following day saw Bobo go down in practice. Hopefully he'll be back soon.

One slightly off-topic comment: for people who didn't catch highlights from UNC's game last night, at one point shortly after half-time Roy Williams pulled his whole starting five in favor of an all-freshman lineup. Didn't help them in that particular game, but probably made a point to his team moving forward that no-one can coast by on talent, and that he is not afraid to embarrass individuals in the short run if it helps the team in the long run. It will be interesting to see how his team responds in the next couple of weeks to this tough approach, as it is similar to what some people have suggested CBH should do when our team seems to lack intensity.

Go Bruins.