Thoughts From A Coach On State Of UCLA Hoops Under Ben Howland
by muircoach on Jan 17, 2010 2:09 PM PST
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PrintI have been coaching basketball at a high level for a long time. So I like to think I know a little bit about the game.
I have supported our Bruins since I was a kid, going to Pauley to watch my favorite players: David Greenwood, Michael Holton, and Kiki Vandeweghe. I love Bruins hoops, but not so much that I am blinded to certain things. I was going to come on here an write a long, drawn-out post on my feelings of the failings of this team, but when I started, I couldn’t do it. Why should I waste the time to do it, when the guys on the team didn’t care enough to even compete yesterday. So, instead of writing a long article and wasting my time. Here are my thoughts, with as much effort as Brickola Suckula gave yesterday.
This team is a miserable mess. CBH is doing an absolutely crappy job. He is doing the same things he has always done, but now he doesn’t have proven players like Darren and Aaron to bail his crappy offense out. In the past, the shot clock would run down, and those guys were so good they would bail us out. No more.
CBH has not inspired or motivated this team in the least. In fact, they have shut him out. Nestor’s post is right on. He has lost this team. As a basketball coach, you can’t continue to let ND and JA play the way they play, and at the same time yank young guys for young guy mistakes. If I were coaching (and I am not half the coach as CBH) those guys wouldn’t get any minutes. They are both an embarrassment to the program right now.
Our recruiting is a joke. I don’t care how many 5-star guys we have. For proof, JK was a McDonalds All-American. For the most part, those teams are a joke. They are popularity contests. You want to see good players, go watch CITY basketball games. Why aren’t we any longer getting guys in the inner city/CITY schools, or the tough SF Valley CITY schools, or the Long Beach schools. No more. UCLA used to own the inner city, whether it was private or public schools. Where are the Tyus Edney’s, the Trevor Wilson’s, the Jordan Farmar’s, the David Greenwoods, the Aaron Afflalo’s. I could go on! We used to own L.A. Don’t tell me the talent isn’t there. It is. We just don’t go after them, or we don’t value them, or they don’t value us because we don’t show the interest. Instead, we are going after the O.C. guys, the pretty boys from the pretty programs. USC is getting the inner city guys. The "tougher than crap" inner city guys who have an edge and won’t back down from anybody. They represent Los Angeles. Instead, all of those guys (Larry Drew for example) are going somewhere else where their style of play is appreciated.
Problem with our style of play. Next, our style of play as just mentioned. hey, I love defense. I flippin love defense and Howland is incredible at teaching it. However, if you watch Coach K at Duke or Coach Williams at UNC………those guys play incredible defense, and at the same time are able to have an exciting and fast-paced system on offense. Why can’t we? For as good as CBH’s defense is, it is very basic and easy to gameplan for. His defense is great for his variety of double-teams and his players usual ability to stay in front of the ball. However, his defense does not create turnovers. Never has, and probably never will. It doesn’t rely on pressure. Instead, just basic fundamentals of staying in front of your man, boxing out, etc. So you better have a sound offensive system, which we haven’t had for a few years now. The UNC’s, the Dukes, the Kansas’s……the elite programs………they get guys who want to come there because they are expected to play great, tough, physcial defense, but they also know that they will be able to play an exciting brand of fast-paced, free offense if they bust their ass at the defensive end. We don’t press at all. Only if we are down by alot. The great programs, except us, all play fullcourt defense, either man-to-man or zone press. Not us. We never create offense with our defense, even when we had the horses to do it…………WHICH IS PAINFULLY OBVIOUS THAT WE DON’T HAVE NOW. If we tried to press or play fullcourt with this team, that would be ugly. However, when we had DC, AA, and the others, we were tailor-made for that type of play.
Style of play creates the next problem: failing to attract truly stud athletes. With our style of play the truly stud athletes, the John Wall’s, the Zieglers and McCallum’s of the world don’t want to play at UCLA. Say what you will, but style matters to today’s great HS basketball players. They want to have fun, and they want to be able to play with a fast tempo. It takes a special player to commit to our system of defense, while knowing that their offensive numbers will suffer (that is NBA dollars suffering people) because they do not play pressure defense that will create easy baskets, and we don’t fastbreak unless we absolutely have it. I haven’t seen us push the ball and run secondary breaks in the past 4-5 years, even when we had the horses. We can get the Josh Smith’s of the world (and he is great) because they know that CBH will pound the ball to them and get them to where they need to be. But the elite guards, they aren’t coming because of the style of play. Farmar and AA came before this was all established, as did DC and RW. Since then, our recruitment of guards has been horrible and we have lost studs (Gaddy?? and others) because of that problem. In the HS coaches community, it is a known fact.
Lastly, I love CBH and appreciate what he has done, but his stubbornness has hurt our program. When he came to UCLA the book on him was that his teams at various stops (UCSB, NAU, PITT) all played different styles and he could adapt as a coach to anything. We haven’t seen it. It seems to me that he was so successful, that he lost his ability to adapt and see the big picture. He has lost great assistant coaches, and the others aren’t doing the same job as the coaches we lost in recruiting and gameplanning. His teams, the past two years, have failed to improve. He has also failed to develop talent and he has not shown the ability to look ahead and develop talent for the following season. Lee was under-used last year, and we are paying for it now. JA, same thing. This year, guys like Moser and Lane should be getting valuable playing time so that when we have Smith and STUD RN in the paint next year, we have viable options off the bench in key positions. Those guys should be playing as much as JA and ND. What ND has done to warrant playing time is beyond me. He is a waste of space. Roll is the only senior who should be playing, and that should probably be off the bench. He is effective there.
Hell, if I was CBH my starting five for the next game would be: 1 Lee 2- Roll 3- Moser 4-Honeycutt 5- Nelson THAT WOULD SEND A MESSAGE. JA would get 10-12 a night for Lee, Lane would be my first forward off the bench. ND and JK would get 5-10 a night in spelling the young guys. That is all they deserve. I would tell those 5 starters that this is their shot, take it or not. They would play their asses off on defense, and I would encourage them to run like gazelle’s!! Lee, Moser, Honeycutt all can run, and Nelson can trail and post, and Roll can trail and spot up. End of story. Anyone who doesn’t like it………………QUIT!!!
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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Some inconsistencies in this post
1. Forever and ever, the knock was that Howland can’t recruit any bigs. They don’t want to play for him, he doesn’t know how to get them the ball, he’s too perimeter oriented. Sure, he’ll bring in the Farmars/Collisons/Westbrooks/Hollidays, but will he ever get the big guys you need to overpower teams in the final four. (Kevin Love being the fluke.)
Now you’re saying he won’t be able to recruit any guards?
2. The notion that we haven’t been pushing the ball from 2007 on is plain wrong. That’s been documented repeatedly, and on display for all to see. And to hear. (Howland yelling “push!”) Our previous three years we’ve tried to generate fast-breaks all the time.
3. If you say we’re undervaluing inner-city players, please name the inner-city players who are playing great in D-1 that you think we should have gone for. Also note: the argument that we don’t go after diamonds-in-the-rough does not mesh with the argument that we don’t go after enough high-profile guys.
Other than that, I agree with a lot of your points. (Btw, I used to play a lot of ball at Muir.) There really is no point in wasting minutes on senior scrubs. But I want to distinguish valid arguments from hodgepodge mass criticisms of everything Howland’s ever done.
On point #3
It’s not just inner city players, we’ve whiffed outright or ignored on a lot of players nearby that are doing quite fine in D1 basketball right now, while going for players that have been particularly bad for us.
Larry Drew II of Taft HS (Valley) over JA?
Deon Thompson (of Torrance) and Alex Stepheson (Harvard-Westlake) over Keefe and Dragovic?
James Harden of Artesia HS?
I know they were recruited and passed on us / didnt qualify academically / or we ended up moving to someone else, but those are names just within the last 4 recruitment classes. Not to mention that the other guys we did get those years from the mold, Russell Westbrook and Chace Stanback… well RW we know what he did. Stanback? Doing better at UNLV as the season goes on it appears..
Mistake
The one mistake was choosing JA over Drew. That was the only choice Ben had. The other situations it was the player’s choice
by lil eg not cs on Jan 17, 2010 6:34 PM PST up reply actions
James Harden
I’d say that was a recruiting mistake as well. Our coaches got on him way way too late.
Harden
Its hard when ASU hired his AAU coach and already had Derek Glasser, who had played on Harden’s team
by lil eg not cs on Jan 17, 2010 6:42 PM PST up reply actions
Yep
They did their homework for sure. I wish our guys were on him early and done a better job of cultivating relationship. This where Keating was amazing. He was simply awesome in cultivating those relationships. He was a recruiting junkie to his core.
What im trying to say
is that this didn’t have anything to do with cultivating a relationship. How do you recruit a guy who’s AAU coach and former teammate are both pulling him to go to ASU?
by lil eg not cs on Jan 17, 2010 6:54 PM PST up reply actions
Scouting him and recruiting him much earlier
… ASU was setting it up for him early with those hires. I think UCLA should have been recruiting him much earlier than they started recruited him. They did give it a good effort at the end but it was too late. I think they would have increased their chances if they reached out to him much earlier.
Offer for Glasser was made in conjunction
with or after Harden’s offer. He had planned to walk on to USC originally.
Thank you so much for this.
Style of play creates the next problem: failing to attract truly stud athletes.
I found this observation particularly poignant since i was lambasted for making this observation a few weeks. At the time, I said the word on the street is that top HS athletes don’t want to come to UCLA because the offense is boring.
You did a remarkable job of stating your case in a way that defies objection. Thank you for pointing out a team may play great defense and great offense. Thanks for mentioning the inner city kids. Baron Davis was one of those kids, and it has been far too long since his caliber wore the uniform.
clearly the problems that face this team are larger than one quick fix can remedy. But, your post illustrates that they can be fixed. BRAVO.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Will someone please define "inner-city" for me?
Does it mean any kid who went to any LAUSD school? That would include the Palisades and Valley.
Or does it mean a subset of LA public schools?
Thanks.
sjh
The Reason I Ask is
that I never thought of Harvard-Westlake, Crossroads (Davis) or Taft as inner city schools.
sjh
well, it's a good point.
There are still good schools in bad parts of town. I don’t know LA as well as some others, being from OC originally. But in Santa Ana, Mater Dei high school is a private school that fields nationally competitive football and basketball teams year in and year out. Yet, it is situated in one of the worst parts of town.
It is not a geographical definition at all. It refers to poor people in poor areas of town with high crime rates and apathy the norm. There are plenty of places in this country that are very rural and exhibit the same symptoms. I would certainly refer to them as “inner city” although they are not a part of a large metropolitan city. It’s the kind of thing, where I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
"Inner City"
In a world of stereotyping, I think what people are trying to say, when they say “inner city” is that they want players with blue collar, working class values — the exact opposite of “entitled” kids.
We want more LMR’s and fewer guys who want to rest on their 5 star high school ratings.
I don’t think we can define those values geographically.
No matter where a kid lives, if he goes to Crossroads or Harvard-Westlake he is going to be exposed to rampant entitlement. Whether or not he succumbs is a matter of character.
Taft is not an “inner city” school. It borders on Encino, Tarzana, and Canoga Park. Yet, we pulled JF from there and he brought a positive work ethic. Fairfax is diverse culturally, but not in the same “inner city” mold as the schools around sc.
My point, however you define “inner city”, that ought not be the search criteria. I’d prefer to name the values we want — hard work, lunch bucket, team oriented, loyal, and whatever other words we can use to distinguish our recruits from the “entitled” — and that we go after kids that have them.
Hector, this post is not aimed at you. Just a convenient place to put it.
sjh
it's all good.
I know what you mean and agree.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
BB...........good points. I appreciate everything you said.
However, just saying “PUSH” does not mean you are running a good fast break, or really looking to score. Many coaches just want the ball pushed to force tempo, but aren’t looking to score. Duke, Kansas, Texas, and UNC all run the best breaks. Their breaks are considered “primary offense” where they are actually running to spots, setting picks, doing everything that you do in your regular offense to try and get a score immediately………but in your fastbreak. They also run “secondary breaks” where they do the same things (set picks, run to spots, pop-outs, etc) when their first couple options in the “primary break” don’t produce shots or points. Only after they have exhausted their primary and secondary breaks do they go into their regular offense. I go to alot of games, and while you are right Howland does yell “PUSH” alot, they really don’t have a structured break where it is part of their offensive system. That is all I was trying to say. Also, I commented on another great post by Nick earlier. In response to your question…..here is what I wrote there a few minutes ago. I cut and pasted it, so I apologize if I didn’t do it correctly. Here it is:
To bring up another name from last year of guys we missed: Kawhi Leonard from King HS in the IE was an absolute beast last year. I saw many games last season, and when I saw him play I told people in the gym that he was better than JK and JD last year!! Now, once again I don’t know if he would have even qualified. I am only making the point that guys like Leonard (who went to San Diego State, are the type of guys we need to turn it around.
It wasn’t just Leonard either…..my personal favorite. Just last year we missed out on Jordan Hamilton from Dominquez. He was a 5-star and signed with Texas. Last I checked, Dominquez is an inner city school. What about Michael Snaer. Another 5-star recruit, chose Florida State instead of us. From Rancho Verde HS……..in Moreno Valley. Tougher than nails kids! Soloman Hill was a big-time recruit, out of our very own Fairfax HS. We get to watch him the next four years at Arizona. This year, did we even give Jordin Mayes from Westchester a sniff? He is an ultra competetive, high motor guard on the best team in Los Angeles by a longshot. Go to a good CITY game sometime. It is insane how much fun these guys are to watch play. I could list players all day.
Those are just a few of the players that we lost out on. I could name other guys too from further back that we missed but they have already been mentioned (Harden and Drew for starters). I don’t think CBH has been horrible. My point is that, to me, he his strategy has changed from his first few years and while l like that he is going national with his recruiting, we must go back to getting directly into our own backyard. Their has been a shift. He wasted alot of energy on the Wear boys last year. Don’t forget that it was Farmar, Afflalo, and Mata who he set the tone with and established UCLA as being back among the elite. I just don’t want CBH to forget that and get back in his backyard.
You did make alot of sense however, and I appreciate the give and take with you. I love talking hoops and believe me, I am not always right. Thanks for the reply.
Muir, your takes are much appreciated
I’m just interested in parsing the real problems from the imaginary ones.
I don’t know about the details of CBH’s fastbreak scheme, and it’s clear that it isn’t his primary offense. Nevertheless, we ran it to perfection when Collison (and Westbrook and Love) was here and run it horribly now, because clearly Malcom Lee is just a terrible point-man in the break and Anderson has been terrible in every aspect. I highly doubt either one would be much better in another coach’s system.
Regarding the inner-city players, I think it’s important to isolate the problem. Obviously a number of them simply don’t have the grades. Then there are the guys you go hard after but can’t snag. Then there are the guys you neglect. Those are all different problems (even if the result is the same).
For the record
He didn’t waste a lot of the time on the Wear twins. He was relying on Clay McKnight to help deliver them. Do you not wonder why he is no longer our video coordinator?
by lil eg not cs on Jan 17, 2010 6:38 PM PST up reply actions
A few facts
However, his defense does not create turnovers. Never has, and probably never will.
Last year UCLA was 21st in the country (6th among BCS schools) in defensive turnover percentage, forcing turnovers on more than 23% of possessions. In 2007, UCLA was 54th in the country and 1st in the Pac-10 in the same category. This year UCLA is 213th.
So you better have a sound offensive system, which we haven’t had for a few years now.
I suppose this depends somewhat on what you mean by “sound,” but UCLA was in the top 10 in (SOS-adjusted) offensive efficiency each of the last two years and in the top 30 the two years before that. This year UCLA is 175th.
But the elite guards, they aren’t coming because of the style of play. Farmar and AA came before this was all established, as did DC and RW. Since then, our recruitment of guards has been horrible and we have lost studs (Gaddy?? and others) because of that problem. In the HS coaches community, it is a known fact.
Style of play isn’t the only reason UCLA didn’t get John Wall (or Jordan Hamilton and Michael Snaer). Plus, all three guards from the 2008 class were highly rated and recruited. Now obviously none of them have lived up to expectations, but it’s not like Gaddy or Drew have done much better.
2 points
1. Keating was a great recruiter. The problem with a great program is simply that your assistant coaches get poached, and the programs that can continue the greatness are good and finding, recruiting, and developing great assistant coaches, both in bball and fball. So far it seems, we haven’t done well in that in regards to our recruiting coaches.
2. Our offense is a patient and methodical offense. I’m no bball wizard here, don’t know shit about real bball coaching, however from what I see is the following. Our offense was based on poking and prodding the outside defenses of our opponent. We would keep doing this, until they had a defensive breakdown – we were essentially being fundamentally sound with the ball while waiting for their defense to make a slight mishap then we’d take advantage of it. This is why our offense was very slow tempo’d, but very efficient.
Well, one of the tenants of this offense is simply, if you’re spending 30 seconds waiting for the defense to slip up, you can’t slip up yourself. And THAT seems to be our problem. In the process of waiting for the defense to break down, the offense slips up. Turnover, bad pass, bad position, or bad shot selection (ND). To me, that’s been the achilles heel of the offense this year, and offense has been our biggest problem.
Refusal to adapt?
IF that’s CBH’s problem, together with “stubborness,” we’re in for some dreadful times. Coach Wooden won with Fellowship of Christan Athletes-types AND with “’60s Movements”-types. That pretty well defines adaptation. Pitt seems to be doing just fine with CBH’s assistant running their program. Blue-chippers think NBA; the NBA’s never been overwhelmed with Coach K’s All-Americans. Duke’s program has dropped slightly but not catastrophically as has ours. Dan Geurrero better get a serious Adapt-and-Follow-Through pledge from CBH once this wretched season’s over.
“My hopes are high; my expectations are low,” as my age-mate Jerry Brown said on the eve of being defeated big-time. T’ain’t funny at all.
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