Bruins can't shoot early or defend, get clawed by the Wildcats

how bad our blocking out is in every game. I just don’t understand how this is happening to a howland coached team. I don’t buy the “we have worse athletes” excuses at all. we are getting killed on the boards and it is because we block out like an intermural team.

(this was a response to Bruinponcho’s comment on the last thread, but then thread closed)
[caveat – I missed 5 mins in the second half when they switched us off]

while ND didn’t make any outside shots, he had a pretty efficient game offensively. His 2-7 shooting doesn’t tell the whole story, given he got fouled inside on 3 or 4 shots inside (sometimes very cynically, like when he was going up for a layup and the guy pulled his shooting arm away). He then stood up and made 7 of 8 from the line for a pretty efficient 11 points on 7 field-goal attempts, better than Roll, Nelson (who couldn’t convert his FTs) and Lee (even after ML rescued his stat line somewhat once the game was out of reach). ND also had 3 assists, 1 TO, and would have had more assists if MR and RN had finished layups. Given our lack of front-court depth and RN’s still-developing offensive game, I think going to ND inside could be useful; it seemed to work decently today.

JA was a horrible liability defensively (along with most of the team) but at least took care of the ball (4 assists, 1 TO) and didn’t force bad shots. ML had his worst offensive game for a while with turnovers and forced shots from all over the court, which weren’t falling until the last few minutes, but seemed to me to be one of our better (or ‘least burned’) defensive players. MR really didn’t get it done at either end of the court, but picked his offense up at the end; but too little too late. RN needs to start hitting his free throws or he is going to get fouled every time he goes up with the ball, and while he is not being making the glaring defensive errors of some of his teammates he still has room to improve in the team defense.

I like TH and he improves game-by-game; defensively, I think sometimes he flatters to deceive by making athletic-looking plays to recover from poor position, and he doesn’t seem to be able to hold his ground when the ball is coming off the defensive glass (which will no doubt improve has he matures physically). Per your comment, he may be a better player than JA and have more to contribute, but ML has been inconsistent running the point in the last couple of games and may be more effective with JA at the point. If ML becomes more consistent, I think CBH will find more minutes for TH. TH may just flat out warrant the playing time, though, if JA doesn’t step up defensively – or if TH starts knocking down some mid-range shots to set up his drives to the basket.

JMM is still off the pace, and doesn’t do enough with his strength to make up for his utter lack of speed. BL …. I have no idea what BL is. He seems lost offensively and defensively; I realize he hasn’t had many minutes, but he looks awful to me every time he is on the court. JK gave some help defensively today and got some rough calls, but can’t do much offensively and misses FTs badly.

Defensively today we had a combination of letting their guards burn us, getting outmuscled on the boards, and allowing their outside shooters too much space. These things seem to flow from each other in our scheme – if their guards get behind us, our bigs are contesting shots (though not actually blocking them or forcing the guard to give up the ball) rather than boxing out and getting in position for the rebound, and AZ were also able to penetrate, kick, and swing to the open man.

Just got back from the game, it was a very disappointing start to the New Year. I haven’t looked at the stats yet but it seemed that every time Jerime Anderson was in the game our offense slowed down, our defense became weaker and U of A went on another run. When will his minutes finally be reduced???

It was also disgusting to hear the U of A fans gloating in Pauley.

In the last seven days, both Fran Fraschilla and Greg Anthony have urged the UCLA fan base to take a giant bite ouf of that four letter “P” word. But I ask you this Greg and Fran ….. doesn’t “patience” imply that we have begun to re-build? Folks, we are not re-building. Instead, we are winnowing. Re-building comes when roster cornerstones are signed and arrive on campus.

For all the spoiled fans who were whining about how we were too defensive all those final four years.

I can’t believe how many awful defenders are on this team. Anderson can’t guard a statue, and as much as I love Reeves, he is pretty hopeless on D as well.

If you can’t defend, you use a zone-not for one play. I do not care how much CBH disdains the zone but every great coach adapts. JA is not an on -ball defender never was never will be. There is no excuse or alibi available for this group-they are just very good

is one of the reasons the Bruins won the ASU game. This team cannot defend anyone off the dribble. No way, no how. Howland should stick to the 2-3 zone defensively.

CBH accomplished his number #1 priority on Defense, he shut down Wise. ML did a good job on defense, don’t fool yourself. When Lee went out at 11:07 in second half, Wise promptly scored. While ML was out Wise scored four points in less than minute, he scored four more in the entire game. No one else on our team could stop him. In other words, ML did a good job on one of the PAC 10s best players.

On offense, I can only wonder what this team would be like with Holiday at the point. CBH has said he did not expect to lose him. Our offense does not have a point guard, ML is not ready and JA may not have the talent. Sure, CBH should have prepared for an injury to Holiday but part of the problem with last year’s team is DC and Holiday did not mesh. While both were great individual talents, the 2 point guards did not play well together and he may have wanted to avoid that problem this year.

Now we are faced with, gulp, ND as a key to our team on offense. Don’t fool yourself, we beat ASU because of him. He has shown to be an good inside player and occasionally a good outside player. But it is really bad he is a key as he is not a CBH player. He is a showboat, plays matador defense, and I am not sure about his head. He needs to rebound better on defense then he did in this game, as he will never be a great defender. I don’t think CBH is happy about this but may feel it necessary.

For CBH knows that RN and MR cannot carry the team. While RN can dominate bad players, he needs to work on his FTs and cannot carry the team in the PAC-10. He needs to be our third leading scorer and find ways to score. MR is a liability on defense. He had a bad first half but not a bad game. He is no pun intend a role player who can’t carry a team but will get his points and do his job. He is close to his potential right now.

TH is the player to watch on this team and what he does did not show up in the boxscore. He made some great passes that lead to FT points. Made some steals and blocks and looked like he had the most energy on the court. I know he also missed an easy layup and a tip in, was out of position a couple times on defense, but he played well over all; like a good but inexperienced freshmen. CBH went to him for JA when JA couldn’t handle Folk and stopped the bleeding. He should be playing 30+ minutes somewhere on this team. If TH had not been hurt and sick so much he would be playing more as he is a true CBH player.

On CBH losing this team. I respect he stood up to Gordon, that could not have been easy and this was the worst possible year to lose a talented player. I respect what he is trying to do with ML and how tough that is. Look, ML looked brilliant for a four minute stretch on offense when he took the game over and scored 10 points. But look at game tracker, during that stretch he made two stupid fouls, Wise got a layup off him, and at the end he was out of control and ended the stretch with a turnover. He is trying to make ML into the “star” and ML did it for 31 minutes on Defense and 4 minutes on offense but he could not do both. Maybe he will someday, but I trust CBH knows what he is doing, which is the way I will end this too long post.