Hoops Roundup: Ben Howland's Unicorn & Coachspeak On "Freshman Minutes"

Ben Howland continues to sound more out of touch as the losses keep piling up for his hapless Bruins.

Let's recall what Howland said about being impatient and taking "ill-advised" shots following the loss against Southern Cal:

Howland blamed impatience, in part, for a 28-point swing against the Bears -- UCLA blew a 14-point first half lead. The Bruins shot 47% for the game, but made only nine of 21 shots in the second half.

"We took a number of ill-advised shots," Howland said. "As soon as it got tight [in the second half], Mike Roll took a bad shot. Nikola Dragovic took a bad shot. Those are the guys who are expected to be our leadership. They have to calm us down and make sure we get a good one."

Still, the poor-shooting defense is contradicted by the fact that UCLA leads in field goal percentage in conference games, shooting 49%. While Dragovic was a dreadful one for eight from the field against California, Roll made nine of 14 shots and was the only Bruin in double figures with 20 points.

Still, Howland insists a better effort is needed. "They are our two best shooters, and we want them to take shots," he said. "But we want them to be patient and take open shots."

Pretty much rolled my eyes after reading those bites since I knew full well that his players will most likely tune him out and jack up even more ill advised shots against Southern Cal (with big chunks of its coming from you know who). Sure enough, the Bruin attempted 26 3 point attempts on Sunday night with Ragovic going only 1 for 8.

Yet, Howland came out spouting the same coachspeak following the loss against Southern Cal:

Howland then pointed to shot selection, saying, "Overall, I thought we shot too many threes."

The Bruins made seven of 26 three-point shots.

Uh really coach? I am guessing you will address the issue by continuing to play Ragovic 32+ mins a game. Howland then made a funny about "freshman minutes":

"We have a lot of young guys returning [next season] and they are getting a lot of experience. I bet we're playing more freshman minutes than anybody in the league. Our young guys will benefit from that."

Yeah, I am sure Mike Moser and Brendan Lane are really benefiting from those "freshman minutes." If anything we can pin the blame for Lane's shakiness during the crunch time in second half (Moser didn't even get to come back in the second half) directly on Ben Howland because he did not bother developing Lane through the season. 

Howland kept waiting for his unicorn in form of a smooth-shooting Ragovic to blow up consistently from the three point line, while playing with a smart, focused and intense effort on both ends of the court. That effort never materialized from Ragovic and it is too late for it at this point of the season. In the process Howland's maddening player rotation stunted the development of kids like Lane and Moser, who are going to head into their second season without a lot of meaningful developmental experience from their first year in Westwood.

Lane and Moser are not the first examples of Howland mismanaging his rotation without optimizing the available freshmen potential. He never fully utilized Russell Westbrook in his first year.  Last year he mismanaged the minutes of Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson. Instead of getting Anderson and Lee getting much needed experience, he went all in wit DC at 1 and Holiday at 2.

He never bothered to use Lee more at the 2 (getting him prepared for this season) even when he was often more effective than Holiday defensively at the spot.  Howland didn't try out using Holiday at 1 and DC at 2 (which we pleaded for number of times), which might (emphasis added) have gone a little way to keep Holiday motivated and perhaps inspired to come back for a second season in Westwood. Howland's rotation never really ended up becoming effective as the team stumbled with a 7-5 record down the stretch which included often humiliating and mostly listless losses against Arizona, Southern Cal and Villanova.

While Howland gives us our best shot to turn this program in next two years, right now my biggest fear is Howland will be mismanaging Tyler Lamb's minutes when he comes into Westwood. I can easily see the scenario of Lamb playing 7-10 mins a game, while Malcolm Lee launches all those bricks as a "shooting guard." I am almost to the point that I do not believe we would have made the run to 2005-06 Final-4, when all those injuries forced Howland to use his young talent early in the season.

Oh well, we can all get excited about waiting for Howland's unicorn in yet another dreadful game week.

GO BRUINS.