Michael Roll's Disgust With This Year's UCLA Team
by Nestor on Mar 14, 2010 7:51 PM PDT
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PrintIf you watched our last game against Cal, you'd notice how at point during second half there was an utter look of disgust and frustration on MRs face after Nikola Dragovic completely screwed up on the defensive end after jacking up a dumb 3 point clanker on the other.
Roll didn't say anything but his facial expression gave everything away. He then made the following comment at the end of Friday night's loss against Cal (emphasis added throughout):
"To be honest, I don't really care. It's over with. We lost, I'm done here. It's time for everybody else to figure it out."
Although he didn't say much you don't have to be that good in reading between the lines in terms of what problems he is referring to with this program. Earlier this season following a humiliation at the hands of Washington Huskies on national TV, Roll called out his team-mates (emphasis added throughout):
Roll was visibly frustrated at times with the effort of some of his teammates, who failed to execute simple passes, were seconds late on defensive rotations and put little emphasis on the glass, where the Bruins were outrebounded 33-23.
"I saw it a lot and it's frustrating," Roll said. "We were down a lot, yeah, but if we come out in the second half and we punch them in the mouth right away, we could've got back in there real easy. But we just kinda folded."
MR also called out his team-mates (pointing to Ragovic) earlier that game week:
"I wouldn't even say it's about being part of the offense; it's about being into the game," UCLA senior shooting guard Michael Roll said. "When they're not playing well, as a team we have a tendency to check out. They have a tendency to not play as hard if things aren't going their way. If we can get them to turn that around - as a team, we all need to play harder if they're not playing well, just to pick up the slack."
He was specifically calling out Ragovic (and Reeves Nelson) for lollygagging through games.
It's pretty clear MR was see what we had been seeing all season yet from his comments after the game against Cal, there seem to be feeling a total sense of powerless and resignation over it.
While Rag (and also Jerime on number of occassions) were the chief culprits for the repeated debacles on the court this season, ultimately the fault lies with the head coach of the program who kept putting the team in that frustrating situation. It has been clear from MR's comments in recent weeks that the combination Howland was trying out wasn't working and was frankly leading to a toxic mix around the team and this program.
MR's comments at the end of this season when put in context with comments from earlier this season, seemed to hint at deeper issues that are percolating in the background. It will be interesting to see how Howland handles this off-season.
GO BRUINS.
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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The one thing this team clearly lacked
was a team leader to get on his team mates when playing lazily. Like Jordan yelling at Rodman to relax. MR to his credit was probably the best candidate for this job, but I get the feeling he didn’t feel he had the right to speak out.
I would think that a coach, when it becomes obvious that no one player is taking the mantle of leadership, would assign the task to someone.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
mexi
its funny that we both came up with similar posts at exactly the same time haha
Great minds think alike
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
I haven't been a part of a competitive team since I was about 10...
but I’d like to think most leaders simply take that responsibility rather than waiting for the coach to give permission. It seems from his comments that MR could have done that, knowing he was one of the few seniors. I have to wonder if MR was discouraged to take the lead by CBH, or if he was just so disgusted by the situation that he figured it was too screwed up to fix but he’d keep his honor and pride by still playing his butt off regardless of everyone else.
Every team I've ever been on has the one guy that yells at every body else
and keeps everybody in check.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
+1
Every successful team I’ve played on has at least one guy playing that role, and/or firing people up. In many cases it wasn’t the designated ‘captain’, and on larger teams there were multiple guys.
I think Nestor had it right when he said in a previous post that we have often looked soft and mentally weak with no desire or will to win the game . Our previous teams had a number of guys who fired up the team or demonstrated a strong will to win or both. MR looked like the only guy who consistently had the will to win, and it did not appear to rub off on his teammates.
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 10:54 AM PDT up reply actions
Well, if that one guy is you, Mexi
then it will always be true! – lol
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
It was an absolute pleasure
to watch Michael throughout his career at UCLA. He gave it his all out on the basketball court every game, even when other players didn’t. He has every right to be frustrated with the way this season went. I always knew he’d make a play when he got the ball and he also usually played solid defense. Best of luck to Mike in what will definitely be a bright future for him.
Every team needs player leadership IMO.
It is obvious MR understood that and tried to be the leader of the team, but I feel like you need more than one player. to be that “extension” of the coach. Usually they come in your seniors, but it seems pretty evident ND wasn’t going to be that person along with MR. He is a mediocre ROLE player at best, and though it can be said that TH and RN stepped up towards the end and showed grit, its not the senior leadership that the teams in the tourny have.
With nobody besides MR leading, I think it is easy to find ourselves in situations like this.
We all know numbingly well how this season has been so painfully frustrating for Michael
That’s why I commented yesterday in screaming capital letters too. IT’S NOT FAIR. SOMEBODY LET HIM DOWN.
Maybe
But you also have to be the change you want to see. At least he kept trying, but he too had his lapses. Lets face it, it’s tough being the leader all of a sudden when you don’t really have the cred to back it up. I’ll miss the UCLA team I saw a few years ago…
He had the cred
of always giving every ounce of effort, energy, and skill he had. Nobody else on the team could say that.
And, I think therein was the dilemma
There were two types of players on this team — those with fancy clippings and a sense of entitlement and those who worked hard to get the most out of what they had.
Said another way, there were Blue Chip talent players, and one or two Blue Chip character players.
MR was perceived as a “character” player. With his character, be made himself a talent player.
But, I’m not surprised he didn’t feel he was in a position to be loud and vocal.
However, we do know he led by example and had a very positive influence on RN who called MR his "mentor">
Finally, how vocal can you be, and how can you call out your team mates for being lazy and careless when your coach does not do the same?
sjh
Agreed.
It’s hard to be the “voice of Ben Howland” when Ben Howland isn’t being the voice of Ben Howland.
by b d on Mar 15, 2010 6:56 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Maybe RN is learning
RN’s repeated comments after beating the standard show he was dedicating his efforts to support Roll. I could see RN’s lollygagging at times as coming from a freshman who was not dealing well with adversity, and that is something that hopefully he will learn to deal with and improve.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Probably more about the whole drama of the season
I suspect MR is fed up with the entitlement kids more than with his roommate.
My read on this
I’m done here. It’s time for everybody else to figure it out
is that the sophomore class have been messing around for two years wanting to be the top dogs, griping about how they are treated, leaving for the NBA, transferring from the program, talking out of school, failing to show up for rehab on time, putting out NBA rumors… and that now all the players ahead of them are gone, they better figure it out. MR is a team-first guy who has had to put up with ego-driven crap for two years from a bunch of players with more talent and less heart.
That said, I also agree with some of the comments above about leadership, and didn’t want to bring them in to the MR love-fest tribute thread. I thought it was telling when we had that quote last week from TH about how “Mike doesn’t talk much, so when he does, we listen” – that says that he is respected as a senior figure but hasn’t taken on the role of a vocal leader that we needed from someone. Leadership had to come from one of the three guys with locks on starting spots – ND, MR and ML – and we were lacking throughout the season. MR made a great effort at trying to lead with his actions – he reminded me of a lesser AA in his willingness to take the ball and will his way to a tough shot or a drawn foul – but he clearly did not provide the ‘extension of the coach on the floor’ role played by JF and DC over the years.
Just because one barks on the court ...
… doesn’t make him a leader. JF was a great player but he wasn’t necessarily the leader of that team.
I agree with your first part
and slightly disagree with the second. I think JF always brought a leadership component. I would grant you that he wasn’t the only leader of those teams – in JF’s freshman year, DT played the ‘lead by example’ role as a senior while JF played the ‘extension of CBH’ role; in JF’s sophomore year he continued to be the floor general (or floor colonel to general Howland) while AA stepped up into a lead-by-example role.
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 7:36 AM PDT up reply actions
Again
Just because he was barking on the court and playing pg doesn’t make JF as the "leader’ of that team. You have no idea whether he had respect of his team-mates both on and off the court. Being a ‘leader’ means lot more than just yelling on the court and running set plays called by the coach. I will leave it at that.
sure
I am happy to concede the word ‘leader’ to whatever you want it to be. It seemed like JF used to do something useful on the court that we have lacked this year – part of that is providing genuine direction from the PG position (so that would be more ‘direction’ than ‘leadership’), but I also imagine he would have been up in ND’s face after missed defensive plays or poor shooting decisions this year (for example). I feel like he helped keep players accountable during the game. I can imagine this annoying his teammates, but I think it made them better players; I suppose this might be more “willingness to provide teammates with critical feedback as to their performance on the court” than “leadership”. Whatever. I was never a big JF fan, felt like he stepped up his performance more and wanted to take more shots in nationally televised games, seemed pretty arrogant, and was the poster child for bailing out of the program early (before Jrudas came along).
This year, it seemed DG fancied himself the leader of the team, and then imploded, leaving a vacuum. ML stepped it up a bit with scoring (until he became PG), and MR led by example to the best of his ability. But to hear the random soundbites about MR being unhappy with his teammates in the press, but also to hear that he doesn’t say much off the court, and to see that he doesn’t say much on the court… it just makes me feel like agreeing with the comments above that he needed to be more forthright in his criticisms and feelings during the season and hold some people accountable.
MR was the closest thing we had to a leader this season and deserves credit for what he achieved. But the team didn’t appear to respond to his style of leadership, and it is unclear how far the likes of ML, JA and JMM (and even ND/JK for that matter) respected him. Most of the MR-love quotes I have seen from players have been from RN and TH, as well as from CBH himself.
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 8:26 AM PDT up reply actions
The team imploded this season ...
… due to the mismanagement by the head coach. JF could have screamed at Drago all he wanted but it wouldn’t have mattered. Drag would still play like a pile of garbage and he would still be getting 33+ mins a court. Lack of effective leadership from Roll wasn’t the issue with this year’s team. Writing a huge response to this comment (essentially saying nothing) is not going to wash that away.
you are right in something you say
lack of effective leadership from Roll wasn’t the issue. We lacked leadership from the top on down and throughout the whole team. CBH is the person most responsible.
Again, the comments you give from MR are telling
They have a tendency to not play as hard if things aren’t going their way.
CBH wasn’t holding those guys accountable; and, as far as I could see from watching and from what we can piece together from off-the-court comments, neither were their teammates (including MR). A ‘gadfly’ like JF would not have solved all our problems by any stretch of the imagination, but could have helped light a fire under some people and brought some of the intensity we appeared to lack all season.
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 8:54 AM PDT up reply actions
It wouldn't have matter
It wouldn’t have mattered what JF did. The team would have been continued to plagued by pathetic defense and a lack of morale given Howland would have continued to play the aforementioned poser of a basketball player for 33 mins a game.
JF would have comitted suicide dealing with this "team".
Not really a team actually, mostly a bunch of f**ckups….
Agree
The “head” coach runs the team and should be held accountable for the team’s performance. This year, Coach Howland just didn’t seem to have the team prepared for games and should have addressed the problem with Gordon and others by having a team meeting very early before games even began. His leadership this year was pathetic. He needs to listen to his players and not be so STUBBORN! Just by listening to your players doesn’t mean that you have to do what they say, but at least you give them a chance to get out their emotions, get things off their chests and, just maybe, some of what they are saying might make for better performances.
by Forever a Bruin on Mar 15, 2010 9:21 AM PDT reply actions
MR and Rago are friends, comment may be focusing on others who will be here next year
Roll and Dragovic are roommates, friends and teammates but couldn’t be more different.
Couldn’t his comments be on the guys left and the future of whom MR was “washing his hands.” Could he be talking about those who do not play D, such as RN and JA? And while Rago killed us beyond belief on offense, don’t forget he had his “best” defensive games with 4 blocks and 5 steals in two games in the PAC 10 Tourney.
Further the real question is not on Rago but will CBH continue the Rago mistake, which may be what MR was talking about. By that I mean: Is JA the new Rago? JA can occasionally play offense well. But he does not look like a PG. He has never shown any interest in defense. Are we trading Rago the no D Forward who shots the 26 foot three with 30 seconds on the shot clock for JA the no D PG klutzy TO machine? Will CBH continue to play JA at point regardless of what happens?
Maybe that was what MR is referring to when he said it was time for everybody else to figure out.
I agree with you in large part.
As I said above, I think it’s aimed at the rising juniors who will be expected to lead the team next year; and possibly also CBH. I don’t think he’s calling RN out here; the comments from RN and TH re: MR make me think that those guys really have looked up to MR. I don’t think MR is likely to be upset at the freshmen so much as the highly touted, highly entitled kids.
FWIW, I also don’t expect CBH to hand JA the starting job. I think there will be pretty genuine competition with Zeke Jones (though with JA starting ahead after two years in the system…). It will also depend on whether he gets himself in shape in the offseason – if he has really been playing at less than 100% all year, maybe we can see more from him in the future. At the very least, competing against a scholarship PG in practice should help.
I’m also hoping RN gets in with KL and sees how important it is to get his defense together. Again, hopefully facing some competition for minutes from BL (assuming RN plays the 4) will help him.
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions
Good point
It seems more logically to be about:
I think it’s aimed at the rising juniors who will be expected to lead the team next year; and possibly also CBH.
If I could amend my initial post I would do so.
I hope you are right about JA. I just don’t think he is D-1 PG. Maybe okay as a 2, if he starts to play D, which starts with an effort.
Uh
I’d think twice about putting too much stock in Jill Painter written piece. She is not a "reporter." She is a columnist who writes fluff pieces w/o any inside knowledge on the program. That highlight quote tells us nothing about actually what has happened behind the program except for her conclusions.
Yes, Howland’s use of Rag is the main issue at this point but it is kind of laughable to point out Rag’s stats from the “Pac-10 tourney” given how he was directly responsible for shooting us out of the Cal game. The look of Roll’s disgust came during those first few mins of second half when Rag single-handedly destroyed our chances.
I agree that Rago Killed us against Cal and wrote
Rago killed us beyond belief on offense
.
But Rago is not the issue. I don’t think it is helpful to talk about Rago anymore EXCEPT in the context of CBH’s future coaching decisions. That is why I wrote about JA.
I stand by the idea of the quote making more sense about JA and maybe\likely as BB says the rising junior class (which since there are no Seniors is even more important as a group). Rago is not a problem for next year .
You can keep believing
That Rol was mostly aiming the comment at “juniors” even though it was made right after a game in which it was Rag who destroyed any chances of winning that game. As I said using an excerpt from Jill Painter’s reporting to counter the assumption that Roll was talking about someone other than Rag is laughable at best (as laughable as jusitfication of Rag’s playing time throughout the season).
if anything
It seemed (to me) that the statement
We lost, I’m done here. It’s time for everybody else to figure it out
refers to those who are left behind – be it stubborn CBH, the ineffective assistant coaches, the perpetually frustrating rising junior class – rather than those who are leaving (JK, ND). The other way of taking it would be that he is just done with the whole frustrating experience and that he didn’t mean anyone in particular by ‘everybody else’.
In another comment, he did call out RN and ND after a question asked specifically about why fortunes seem to rest so much on the performance of those two players. And in another comment, he questioned why the team as a whole folded, which goes to your previous statements about the team collectively being mentally weak.
Does it matter much who he was calling out at that moment? Whether or not he was calling out ND in this specific instance is moot given he is no longer part of our problem. Maybe it is the pessimist in me that thinks he is mostly talking about people who will still be our problem for the next 2 years…
by britishbruin on Mar 15, 2010 12:39 PM PDT up reply actions
+1
I’m with bb and DCBruin on this one. IMHO, it seems MR was referring to what is being left behind at UCLA and not Rags effort, or lack thereof, against Cal.
Besides
the fact that Drago and Roll don’t even live together
by lil eg not cs on Mar 15, 2010 3:53 PM PDT up reply actions
I think we spend way too much time on this site
attempting to analyze quotes from the kids. Sure, it gives us something to talk about and it gives the chicken littles apparent support for their “sky is falling” claims. Truth is, we will never know what the hell is going on in the minds of the players.
For all I know, ridiculous as it sounds, ML’s “poem” might have been just that, a poem. In context, it would seem to me that MR’s comments are more likely to be about a group of players with bad attitudes than one Serbian bricklayer. That being said, it really doesn’t matter what I think about these comments because any conjecture on these matters is in all likelihood tinted by our own personal opinion and has little if anything to do with the original intent of the speaker.
If there’s one thing I know about student athletes, it’s that their thoughts and feeling generally have very little in common with the thoughts and feelings of passionate alums/boosters/supporters. We are looking at the situation from two very different angles. So, while it’s fun to guess at what these guys (or their moms/friends/camps) mean when they say what they say, I feel that in the end it’s an excercise in futility.
Fair enough
I will stay away from these type of posts in the future. All I was trying to say was that strong attacks without proper nouns can be twisted any way a commentor wants to twist them. There’s supporting evidence to back up any number of claims as to the subjects of Roll’s rant.
The post above
I excerpted Roll’s comments and put them in context with other comments he made this season. I provided the relevant links and I always tag my posts in a way that other related information that has gone up on BN is linked up as much as practicable. Given the body of work that we have put together this season, I don’t see anything to back off from concerning the arguments I presented above. As I mentioned, if you don’t like reading these posts then skip them. Just don’t lecture us on what to write. Thank you.
Those articles don't seem to exist anymore
I tried to follow the links and ended up with a “we’re sorry that article no longer exists” page from the Daily News. My question is, did Roll ever explicitly point to ND and RN? Did he use their names or did he pull the “media savy” move and avoid proper nouns?
I am pretty confident
Those were in specific references to Rag and Nelson. I wrote about it extensively when those quotes appeared making that connection here.
Wish I could see the original article
Better yet, wish I could have been there when the reporter asked the question and MR answered. Seeing as how I wasn’t there, I just feel that it’s still supporting conjecture with conjecture.
Then click on the links
when the roundups go up during the season. They are there for a reason. You can feel whatever you want. We will keep pointing out comments, quotes, nuggets etc. we think are salient and put them in context based on our previous observations.
Oh and one more of thing ...
No one is stopping you from believing Lee was writing about a “poem.” If you think that was it and the poem itself had nothing to do with what has gone on with this program, that is your call. We will continue to spot whatever detail we think is relevant to UCLA hoops and do everything we can to put in context. I am sure Lee is perfectly happy at UCLA will not be looking to leave his cage by trying something absurd as “testing” the NBA waters.
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