UCLA And North Carolina Are Not In The Same Boat

over the years, compiled an even better winning track records and stellar resume, first at Kansas, and now North Carolina, than Howland’s. The latter’s three final fours and conference championships cannot even compare, in any remote ways, with Williams’ numerous ones at Kansas and, of course, the two " ultimate " ones he secured at Chapel Hill within a span of five years.

That said, Williams recruiting prowess eclipses that of Howland & company too. Californians,every now and then, go to Chapel Hills . You don’t see too many North Carolinians, if any, come to Westwood.

Much as I tend to agree with most, if not all of what you said, Nestor, I still think of Howland enough to hope that he can pull the program out of this " malaise ".

But I think there are some similarities here, and other factors which contribute to why we are not similarly situated.

I do agree that Huckleberry Hound deserves more leeway than Howland does, precisely because he did win two titles. A good buddy of mine who is a UNC die hard says that he would forgive 5 bad years. But a big reason why UNC won last year was because he was able to convince guys like Hansbrough, Lawson and Ellington to stay as long as they did. For whatever reason, Howland has not been able to do the same with guys like Love, Westbrook, LRMAM, etc. I recognize that Love and Westy were both high lottery picks so for them to say no to the money would have been harder, but had Howland held on to those guys, it might have been us winning the title last year, and not UNC, and the comparison would be reversed. Yes, we could have won the title the year before but for some questionable coaching by Howland, but I digress.

I also cannot refute the comparisons you make regarding the conferences. There’s no question things would be uglier if we traded places with UNC right now.

But I just keep going back in my mind to the way the Class of 2008 has crippled our beloved team, and I think it’s also partly to blame for what is going on at UNC. As I have mentioned elsewhere, we just had more eggs in the 2008 recruiting class basket, and so we’ve been hurt more… a lot more. Roy snagged Larry Drew Jr. in that class, and though admittedly I haven’t watched UNC that much this year, I don’t really think he’d be much of an upgrade over our very thin and very untalented backcourt.

I’m not in any way trying to write off our down year. I don’t think there is any way to heal the wounds from this year in the near term. And UNC’s down cycle will not last as long as ours, since in every recruiting year other than 2008, UNC and Roy have recruited better than UCLA and Howland.

about what that former Bruin headcoach said in just about anything whatsoever. Our AD Guerrero shoudl have docked his severance pay even, if Guerrero ever found a way to do it of course.

In my mind, I keep telling myself that what we see now can be nothing more than a letdown, some momentary tumoil for Howland’s program. Indeed, LATimes reported positively about UCLA’s incoming recruit, Mater Dei’s sharp shooting guard Tyler Lamb and his keen desire to come help his future team at Westwood.

If he lives up to such advance billing, and Josh Smith dominates the way he is hyped, the malaise would dissipate and Westwood’s basketball universe, in the words of Bill Walton, " be restored in the proper order ".

Nelson will be a reliable scorer and rebounder under the basketball when his game improves, as expected. Honeycutt’s game seems to be on its upward trajectory already. This is our core for next year and beyond.

Nothing we can do about early departures. Tell that to Duke, UNC, UConn and the likes, I am sure we will hear the same story. But let’s not have what we cannot control dampen our support, at least not yet, of our team and the guy in charge. I trust the judgement of our AD Guerrero when he zeroed in on Howland and Howland only after dismissing that pitiful one. Then he sat at courtside during one of the preseason debacles, doled out ringing endorsements of his coach at the same time when the onslaught unfolded barely several yards before him.

Even with someone like LATimes’ Bill Plaschke, whom I nicknamed Billie Pleishette ( because he just might be one of “those closeted ones” ), Guerrero sounded no less glowingly about Howland too. There just cannot be all that smoke without substance.

I found BN when I was looking for a way to air my frustrations during that period when we had no actual head football coach. The answer to the problem then was clear. We needed to hire a real coach. The debate was more about when the pretender should be fired rather than if he should be fired. I was part of the faction that said he should be fired instantly, and indeed during a game if it couldn’t be done quicker. I believed that every minute the man in the empty suit stayed in command would cause a year of rebuilding. Coach Neuheisel is just now getting us out from under the legacy of the reign of error.

I don’t think I have seen anyone who thinks Coach Howland should be replaced. His record until now has been pretty good, and the horrible way the team has played this year looks even worse because we all can’t help comparing this team to Coach Howland’s great teams.

I don’t know what the answer is. It’s easy to tell Coach Howland to coach better, or to figure out a way to have our guys make free throws better than a junior high team, or things like that. But what specifically do we ask him to do (other than keep Rag on the bench). I got nothin’, Bruin brothers and sisters. I see nothing to be gained by feuding within the family, or by comparing Coach Howland to other coaches and UCLA to other teams. We have a team that’s broken, and I have no answers. Fortunately, we have some real coaching talent making contributions to the BN, and I would welcome comments from some of these people.

and they have more of an excuse coming off a banner year..

we have shown some improvement over the season in results and how the team appears to be playing, whereas unc is looking worse at this point than the team that beat michigan state and ohio state in early non-conference games

This season really puts Howland under the microscope the likes of which he probably never imagined, experienced nor anticipated.

It sure looks as though he missed his confidants and lieutenants from his days at Pitts to strategize and regroup. But then he hired the replacements too. However way the current season ends, we all know he won’t go wrong to prepare for next season with Nelson & Honeycutt as the priorities.

I know most of us feel the same way. I’ll be the first one to be up in arms if, out of desperation for short term fix, bring in another European player unless they have his birth certificate verifying his status of being a Tony Parker or Dirk Nowitzsky clone.