Note For UCLA Fans Mocking Other Tourney Teams
by Nestor on Mar 21, 2010 8:46 AM PDT
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PrintI wanted to pass on some football notes this Sunday before Ryan opens up another March Madness thread. Before I do that wanted to share couple of quick observations from last three days of actions I have picked up here, in other Bruin online communities and also in the twitter world (you can follow BN account here).
First of all, I think it is a little silly for UCLA fans to make fun of Big East's troubles during this tourney season. Saw Maurice Jones Drew and Jarrad Page doing it on twitter yesterday. That is all good but right now if I were a UCLA basketball fan, I'd keep my trap shut about making fun of other hoops teams. Our own program is not good enough to beat Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State. I doubt if we can even beat UCSB with Howland's Nikola leading the way. So, really Bruins should shut it and think about how Howland is going to rebuild the program he wrecked during this off-season and next two years.
Second, it is a little HIGHlirious to see Bruins make fun of Bill Self. I don't think Self is a perfect coach. I am not sure if he is an elite one. However, what his accomplishments are on par with Jim Harrick, who to date has been the most successful coach in Post Wooden era of UCLA basketball. Yes, Howland took our team to three Final Final-s, which were nothing short of great accomplishments. However, in my book Banner number 11 stands above any of those accomplishments.
Moreover, Harrick not only won that banner he put together a great program which had a strong foundation even after he left. At the end of his seventh season, he had a program, which had just won 2 Pac-10 titles in a row, and cruised control to another one and a bruised Jelani McCoy ribs away from a Final-4. Harrick left the program in such strong shape that it won the conference title without a basketball coach, and essentially allowed a poser to reel in two top classes on the cache of the UCLA brand Harrick rebuilt from the Hazzard mess.
Similarly while Self might have choked another tourney appearance, his Kansas program is in much better shape than the unrecognizable, mid-major mess Howland has created at UCLA. Kansas is going to right back at it put together string of solid seasons and hit the jackpot again, while UCLA is going to scraping for a 20 something wins next season, and then fret about retaining its best players fleeing the Howland cage.
So, yeah Bruin fans if you are going to run smack on other hoops programs in Big Dance (while ours spout clichés about working hard this off-season), look stupid somewhere else. Not here on BN.
While other teams might be underachieving during this tourney, we have much bigger problems than not being good enough to even be considered for the NIT.
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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Can't believe you had to post something so transparent.
It seems quite obvious that one in a glass house shouldn’t throw rocks. If this season doesn’t create some humility amongst the fan base I don’t know what would.
Yeah
Making fun of Self is pretty freaking hilarious considering the season they just had. I would have been more than happy to have their dominating regular season. Yes, they got their hearts broken by a cinderalla … but so freaking what. That loss is going to do noting to impact their recruiting and prospects for long term success.
I agree about Self...
I think making fun of the Jayhawks, or Bill Self, is not very appropriate, especially since, like you said, this loss will not have any effect on their recruiting or future seasons. I also think Self is an elite coach based on his success at every stop of his coaching career.
I, however, do think it’s appropriate to make fun of the Big East (and their 4-5 record, 0-2 against the Pac-10), and pump up the Pac-10s 3-0 record thus far. I don’t think anyone who does that is advocating that the Pac-10 was better than the Big East this year, but it’s always nice for the east coast to get some comeuppance.
Big East "greatness", and Harrick
The kids and the schools in the Big East just play basketball, and they do it very well. All the hype and the labels, such as “best basketball conference ever” (used by some guy on Mike & Mike last week) are products of the media. I see the shots mocking the Big East as really being shots at the media. And the media deserves all the ridicule and mocking it gets.
As for your comment regarding Harrick v Howland, N, we disagree there. This year aside, I have never been embarrassed by Howland’s teams. Harrick, on the other hand, gave us Penn St, Tulsa, and Princeton, and those still stick in my gut. And if it weren’t for Tyus, we add Missouri to that list, and remove Harrick’s one shining moment. There were just too many first round underachieving flameouts under Harrick. Plus, there was that little issue of lying to UCLA about dinner at Monty’s (OT – how many Saturday nights ended at Monty’s listening to Prince Teddy?!). I appreciate Banner #11, but am glad that Harrick moved on.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Well we disagree pretty severely here
You wrote:
I have never been embarrassed by Howland’s teams.
That was true before last season. I am not going to list all the disgraceful and listless performances on the court from last two years which was lot worse than Tulsa, Princeton, and Penn State.
We didn’t get humiliated on a court with John Wooden’s name against Cal State Fullerton with Harrick. You might have not been embarrassed but I was appalled, disgusted and embarrassed.
Harrick’s teams didn’t lie down like dogs infront of Coach Wooden and got blown out against Mississippi State and looked lifeless against Oregon.
Sorry … it is going to take a while to forget this season of Dragovic.
I'm getting soundbitten!
This year aside, I have never been embarrassed by Howland’s teams
I agree with you 100% that this year was an unmitigated, freaking, in-your-face, appalling, disgusting, disasterous embarrassment of epic proportions.
But it was one season. Once is a mistake, twice is a trend, and more than that is the truth – which is why I am not a huge fan of Harrick. Maybe I’m being unappreciative, but, knowing how rare and difficult a chamionship is, I still see Harrick’s run as the exception during his tenure. Howland still has the chance to right the ship and make this season the exception.
But if this year becomes the rule, then we won’t need to debate.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Sorry about that
I saw that but note I also referred to listless performances from last year (there were few of those such as blowout losses against Arizona and completely listless performances against Southern Cal in the Pac-10 tourney). So this trend started last year. This year didn’t just happen in a vacuum as we have pointed out on context number of times.
Also, you mentioned how mocking the Big East is more about mocking the media. Unfortunately when our program sucks so bad we don’t really have the standing to mock anyone associated with hoops. Like I said we have a program that was outclassed by Long Beach State and needed a buzzer beater to beat Concordia.
Fair enough
I think we’re actually much closer on these topics than first appeared.
It’ll be interesting to see if CBH learns just how much personality is a key ingredient to his teams’ success. It’s fair to argue that certain individuals – and his tolerance of them – crippled this year and hindered last year, whereas certain individuals prior to that made teams national powers. It may be that CBH is a poor disciplinarian, and his teams rely on internal chemistry and leadership to make or break things.
Here’s to the coming years’ teams being AA’s and DC’s and not JH’s and ND’s (raising my glass of orange juice).
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
I will drink to that gb
In fact we will most likely have to toast to it (over few Fat Tires) this summer in Colorado.
Some on Bruinzone
recently posted the LA Times letters after the loss to Tulsa
by SuperBruinMan on Mar 21, 2010 2:33 PM PDT up reply actions
interesting indeed
though it is also all relative; the embarrassment felt at one public humiliation is likely to abate more quickly than a season of sustained embarrassment. Whether ‘the season of Dragovic’ is seen as an embarrassing blip, or as a defining moment in ‘the tenure of Howland’, will depend on what happens in the future. Clearly Harrick now gets a much softer treatment than he would have done if he had lost in the title game in ’95. Just win, CBH.
by britishbruin on Mar 21, 2010 3:06 PM PDT up reply actions
People seem to always forget
. . ..we were still in it to win the PAC 10 with our final game in Oregon. Tyus Edney suffered a bad back injury during that game where he was carried off the court by players after the end game. It was a miracle Tyus stepped on the court against Tulsa because he was bed ridden for almost a week after the Oregon game. That’s what the LA Times doesn’t tell you and if Tyus was a 100% I really believe that the outcome would have been different for that game and the tournament.
Plus, the match up against Tulsa was terrible. Their front court looked like the Nebraska offensive line and we were totally out-muscled and out-rebounded. But hey, that’s the way it goes.
Glad Harrick moved on?!
Expense reports?! Are you kidding me?! I can not tell you how many expense reports are fudged. For those of us who were involved in the athletic department at the time, it was very well known how Pete Dalis and Harrick butted heads. Harrick’s mistake was his belief that he was bigger than the program and didn’t have to answer to his boss. Compared to the recent transgressions of the likes of Chetey Petey and Calipari, etc., a false expense report pales in comparison.
Ask his former players, like Pooh Richardson and Baron Davis, and you will hear very positive things about Harrick. The foundation was solid and I lay the blame of the Lavin years on the doorstep of Pete Dalis.
Harrick rarely lost to the the sisters of mary. Tournament teams are one thing and all great teams get upset here and there, especially when there’s a big “X” on your back because you have the four letters across your chest and programs like Kansas are not exempt. Plus, those were the years of a true offense when scoring 100 points got you some free grub at Burger King. Howland’s offensive scheme is listless and his reliance on Dragovich shows how CBH was grasping at straws coming up with a way to score points.
I agree that the Harrick situation was overblown
but when you look at the issues he had following NCAA rules in his stops after UCLA, I’m glad he got the boot.
For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 21, 2010 6:05 PM PDT up reply actions
I here you, but
. . . allegations of writing players’ papers at Rhode Island. That was basically the admin (who was also suing for sexual harassment) typing up papers for players who did not know how to type. As funny as it sounds, it happened a lot at UCLA, but papers were never written for players. Sexual harassment stuff, “accused” and she settled out of court for $45K.
Georgia, totally different story and he was at fault because he hired his son Jim Jr. who was very well known to be a pretty suspect character. Worse, he recruited Tony Cole who was even more suspect and led to his downfall. Interesting, because his other two sons Glen and Monte are great guys, but Jim Jr. was definitely the one to keep an eye on. Jr. was also implicated in the ouster of the SDSU coach much like Bozeman’s lobbying of the firing of Campanella. Jim Jr. had a pretty checkered past.
Who knows if Harrick would have committed major infractions at UCLA, but the fact of the matter is he was loyal to his players and the UCLA basketball family. He finally had set the foundation for an outstanding program after a long time of being second guessed by boosters, alumni, and the A.D. LA Times and Vitale would often crucify him. There was even a stalker who mailed death threats to Harrick, but he persevered and brought in championship banner #11. Also, CBH should thank Farmar for stealing the ball away from a Gonzaga team that choked in the final minutes that led to CBH’s first final four.
+1... Harrick got screwed
Sure Coach Harrick had a few indiscretions, but they could’ve been handled in a proper and firm manner. It didn’t justify canning Harrick. Dalis was a douche for doing that and was a bigger douche for giving his boy Lavin the best gig in the world. I agree with Nestor that after the 95 NC, Harrick had a well oiled machine that put could’ve put us in the top every year, and if it weren’t for friggin’ Lavin, in my hearts of all hearts, we should have had at least 2 more NCs with the incredible talent and character of players we had. Who can forget Toby Bailey, Kris Johnson, Charles Henderson? Oh! And C O’Bannon? We had a lot of very special players up until maybe Lavin’s 4th year. And it was all because what Harrick had established.
Like N, I’m grateful for CBH’s FFs, but NCs have been the only standard by which UCLA is held too. And although I know this many may not agree with me, but for me, CBH has pretty much been sliding the program not for just 2 seasons, but for 3. As I honest to God feel that CBH blew one NC despite having an incredibly stacked squad with K.Love et al.
Also, if you say that if it weren’t for Tyus bailing Harrick then he would have no NC, then the same can be said for CBH. If it weren’t for JF, Ced, the Prince, then CBH has no Final Four. But at least with Harrick, his resulted in an NC.
Since you brought up offense
How does everybody feel about Jaimie Dixon? I mean he runs pretty much a CBH defense (all defensive credit in the world has got to go to CBH), but his offense seems to flow better than CBHs. And I think he does this with less talent then CBH. I think this would make for an interesting topic to use comparisons of the two coaches to maybe see CBH’s strong and weak points more clearly over the course of his time at UCLA and may really indicate whether we’re going to get more of the same, or the last few seasons have been an abberation. Any thoughts?
Well said, Nestor
At least KU made the post season.
I may work with the Waves, but I'm still a Bruin!
Slightly Disagree
IMHO, mocking any other team, even if we were in the game big this season, is generally pretty classless, regardless. (Obviously, fact-based criticism, particularly of U$C, falls well outside this activity.) Mocking Bill Self just seems ignorant to me, to be honest.
That said, I think MJD and Page have earned the right to say anything they want about other schools. Do they open themselves up for major smack downs? Of course they do, and they know that. I agree with UCLA1983, above, and the linked twitter comment seems to be along those lines to me. The fact is, five of the Big East’s eight teams are done.
Just an aside: The Kansas City Star’s sports section printed an “Apology of the day” today (Blair Kerkhoff) to the Pac-10 “from everybody who jeered the conference entering the NCAA Tournament.”
Love My Bruins
Kansas fans
have been all class, congratulating N. Iowa for playing a great game and knocking them off. No excuses, no insults, all class from KU fans.
Kansas fans get it
I don’t see Kentucky fans acting the same way.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Sage advice, N.
The best kind of trash talking is the trash talking that you don’t have to do, because the results speak for themselves.
+1
I’m starting to enjoy the tournament.
It’s a lot different, watching games with a level of distance and no concerns like “who would I rather face between these two teams”.
I am rooting against Kentucky because I feel it is a corrupt program; feel the same way about Tenn.
But, for the most part, I’m having a great time rooting for Cinderella’s like St. Mary’s and enjoying the chaos I usually fear when we are in the tournament.
Nestor, and Nut — you’ve hit it on the head. We should be quite and contrite. We have no right to mouth off about other programs or their players (except the global exception for $c as ‘83 points out — but $c owned us this year and I’m even quiet about them.) You earn your right to talk and ’nut is right, teams that earn it rarely talk it.
sjh
by Class of 66 on Mar 21, 2010 11:40 AM PDT up reply actions
frankly
We have heard all year about how the Pac-10 is pathetic, weak, and that what little success we had in that conference this year should be discounted because of how the Pac-10 is the worst big-6 conference in the history of basketball. I think it is totally justified to laugh when the overhyped Big East takes a fall.
The Pac-10 has taken more than its share of abuse this year – we are bad, but not THAT bad. Now the Big East is getting some comeuppance and the Pac-10 is performing well I don’t see the harm in pointing it out – particularly if you are an MJD or Jarrad Page who has probably taken crap all year about how weak the West coast is.
by britishbruin on Mar 21, 2010 12:37 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
No actually
We are pretty bad. And just because bunch of tourney games are won, that doesn’t wipe away the body of work. If tourney games were the barometer, morons who pimp Lavin as a “head coach” would have a point. Also, I never cared all that much about conference pride. I doubt other conference teams’ fans ever cared about us.
So yeah if people want to sound like morans ridiculing other tourney teams or conferences, gonna have to do it somewhere else.
I was always disappointed with Lavin in the Tourney(Also don't be mean to 'Moran's)
In his first year he couldn’t convince Jelani(Translates to warrior) McCoy to stay on the court during the elite 8 because of a chest bruise. And that was the moment where I suspected he was a moron. In subsequent years Lav would win a game the players would motivate themselves for against a higher seed and then lose to a lower seed the next round.
As for ‘Morans’; I don’t know what your problem is with this proud irish family but I’d keep it to myself Nestor.
Insults are poorly targeted
Don’t insult the teams or conferences, insult the so-called experts and analysts that fuel the perception of the best teams/conferences. The analysts and commentators by in-large do lazy reporting and infrquently do any independant research. One would think that in a season with such parity, that a few analysts would be able to find and promote some of these good mid-major teams/conference.
Bruin fans, please we have no right to insult ANY other team wrt b-ball. This past season was a debacle. I would be shocked if any other team in the country had as poor of a season as we did.
I maintain that Howland's really only made one major mistake so far
The Drago puppy love. The other obvious one would be the Class of 08, but I’m not ready to give up on that just yet; it could still pay dividends, whereas the Drago era has already had massively devastating (though not incurable, IMO) effects on our program. Consider:
1. What if CBH decides, in 07-08, to give Drago’s 10 minutes a game, usually in important situations, to Chace Stanback instead (and then bump Drago down to the only-use-in-case-of-blowout pile that Chace got buried in that year)? Is Chace averaging 11 points, 6 rebounds, a three and a block a game for us this year instead of UNLV if he gets more playing time as a freshman?
2. What if CBH suspends Drago for the season after the Fullerton game like a fair amount of people wanted? Maybe Gordon doesn’t become dissatisfied with his lack of playing time and stays, developing into the solid post guy he probably will become someday. And then maybe the outcomes of a few games shift this year. Long Beach State, Notre Dame, Cal, USC, Oregon, Arizona State, and Cal again are the best examples of close games in which his complete ineptitude probably cost us the W. That’s a theoretical seven-game shift, which would put our record at 21-11 and have us as a fringe tourney team instead of a not-even-good-enough-for-the-NIT team.
Well, we all know what actually happened in both of those cases: Howland chose to promote Drago’s growth over Chace’s in 07-08, and then chose not only to not suspend Drago in 09-10 but to inexplicably make him the focal point of the offense. Crazy, crazy, crazy, inexplicable, and crazy.
But you know what? Drago’s gone now. I know that that doesn’t immediately solve all of our problems, and that we do have to be wary of CBH now that he’s officially given us cause…but still, we’ve got a decent foundation with Honeycutt, Reeves, and Smith, and it’ll be even better if Lee stays and one of JA/LJ steps their game up at the point. I see next year going the way this year should have: an iffy start followed by gelling during the Pac-10 season and peaking near the end of the year, allowing us to become a bubble team and hopefully make the dance. Not great, but definitely a step back in the right direction…and then depending on who stays or goes and what recruits we get next summer, we could be looking at a deep run in 2011-12. I still have hope, is what I’m basically saying.
re: Drew Gordon
I’ve been seeing this a lot since this season ended, and I really don’t like it- blaming Howland for Drew Gordon’s departure. Complaining about PT? Give me a break; he was a soph and he was averaging 24.5mins per game, primarily at the 5. We all know the real reason Gordon stomped off- Ben Howland doesn’t “run and gun” and “open up the offense” enough for his style. Ben Howland made a lot of mistakes this year, but not kowtowing to Gordon’s tantrums was absolutely not one of them.
Playing Drago so much was a mistake but
1. Dragovic played 5.9 minutes per game, if you include all the games in which he didn’t play at all. Furthermore, most of those minutes came in blowouts. If you take out the games that UCLA won by 20 or more, Dragovic played all of 2 mpg. Now I’m sure that’s more than Stanback got, but I don’t think he would’ve stayed if he had been first string benchwarmer-that-never-plays rather than second string.
2. Gordon and Dragovic’s issues were completely unrelated. Gordon didn’t leave because of playing time, he left because he wanted to play an up and down style. With Dragovic on the bench, there may have been a couple more wins possible, but it’s way too optimistic to think that it could’ve made a 7 win difference. Without a serviceable PG on the roster, this team’s potential was severely limited.
If we have another iffy start, it will be a bad sign, because even in down years like this one the non-conference SOS is way weaker than in conference. I think we’ll be in good shape though if Anderson and Jones do well enough to keep Lee at SG and if Lane and Stover can bulk up and learn Howland’s defense. It would be interesting to know how much better this year’s team would’ve been if it hadn’t gone into the year with so many injuries.
by SuperBruinMan on Mar 21, 2010 3:15 PM PDT up reply actions
Re
1. Drago played 9.2 minutes to Chace’s 5.8, but Drago did at least see some action in crunch time (remember his clutch three at Oregon in the Kevin Love game?), whereas I can’t remember one single time that Chace entered the game when we weren’t up by 20-plus. So it’s not all about the number of minutes; it’s about the importance too. Chace had to figure that Ben didn’t trust him and his future at UCLA was bleak.
2. I know that the main reason Gordon left was because of the UCLA style of play, but I mean, come on, be realistic. Gordon came to UCLA because he knew that it was a great basketball school that got on TV a lot and would give him a ton of national exposure for the NBA Draft. Then he begins this season, splits time at PF/C with Keefe and Drago instead of getting a permanent full-time role, and watches us go 2-4 with losses to Fullerton and Long Beach (both of which wouldn’t have happened if Drago wasn’t on the team, btw). He saw the handwriting on the wall and left. I maintain that he would have stayed if Drago hadn’t left. Also…I don’t know if I agree about the PG thing, because Lee did at least a serviceable job when he got pressed into duty, and you have to remember how terrible the Pac-10 was during the regular season this year. I still think we’re a 20-win team this year without Drago.
I do agree with your assessment of what’ll need to happen for next year, and frankly I don’t think that situation is very far-fetched (although why the Stover mention? He won’t be in the top two on the C depth chart next year…)
you're handing JMM the putative backup center role?
Or you’re not buying all the stories about RN playing the 4 next year?
Stover could get plenty of minutes next year, unless JMM improves markedly and JS2 is ready to go.
by britishbruin on Mar 21, 2010 5:08 PM PDT up reply actions
Yeah
From what I’ve seen of Stover, he’s far quicker than Morgan. There also seemed to be talk about Stover playing surprisingly well before the season, though there was clearly no intention to play him this year. If he gets a lot stronger and learns the defense, I think he’ll be the best inside defender on the team. It’s hard to see Morgan being able to contribute much on either side.
by SuperBruinMan on Mar 21, 2010 5:20 PM PDT up reply actions
There's barely any difference
Dragovic played important minutes in one game the entire year, and that was because the rest of the big men were in foul trouble. Clearly Howland didn’t trust either of them.
As for Gordon, he didn’t split time with Keefe and Dragovic. He was the starting center and played 38 minutes against CSUF. He played less in the blowout wins that came after (largely because of foul trouble) and then he threw the tantrum against Long Beach and that was the end. The idea that Gordon left because of Dragovic is completely unfounded.
And Lee wasn’t very good at PG. He averaged 14.6 ppg with Anderson starting at the beginning of the season. After Anderson was benched, Lee averaged 8.6 points over 9 games, had more turnovers than assists and went 1/22 on 3’s. There were also a couple games that Anderson blew right at the end.
The Pac-10 was bad this year, but the in-conference schedule was still stronger than teams like Portland that blew us out (and I don’t see how you could put the whole difference on Drago). If we had won the games you listed, we would have been Pac-10 champs, and I think Howland would have deserved a lot of coach of the year honors for doing so much with a team that was seriously lacking.
by SuperBruinMan on Mar 21, 2010 5:15 PM PDT up reply actions
My, what a long, strange trip..
Nestor,
I cannot dispute what you’ve written concerning Harrick and Howland. But, taken in the context of history — not to be overly dramatic — it’s amazing how the two coaches are now regarded. Again, this is in no way to be critical of the opinions expressed here. I think, by and large, the objectivity here is nonpareil.
To be sure, Harrick deserved being dismissed for his NCAA transgressions and perhaps some of the vitriol or enmity was understandable. But, it is interesting how — again — history has softened people’s opinion of Jim. Of course, that may also be due to the fact that Harrick never really abandoned his love and reverence for UCLA. I remember in Howland’s first few seasons, there would be articles how Jim still showed up in the stands, worked with prospects and always tried to help the basketball program he guided for a number of seasons. He could have been a bitter man full of poison and recriminations but chose the high road.
It is good to see him so kindly regarded and good to read your words.
It is my fervent hope that Ben Howland will right his program and steer us to banner #12..and #13 and #14 and on. There was a lot of love and affection and gratitude for him rescuing us from the Wethead. I am truly sorry to see this program fall on hard times.
It really hurts.
I regard coaches like Harrick and Howland as members of our family who had (and have) to be taken to the woodshed by the Great Fathers of Basketball (or whatever mythical deity watches over Coach’s program). But, once shown the error of their ways, they will fall back into line and restore the fame and glory that was once the province of UCLA basketball.
When I was young and I ran off the rails, my mom used to admonish me, saying that I was “in the grip of the devil”. We weren’t overly religious; it was just her way with hyperbole. So, maybe Ben Howland is similarly afflicted and he can cast off this spell and get back on track.
..sure hope so.
God, it's great to be a Bruin!
Harrick
I was really upset when the stories came out about him falsifying expense reports. However, I thought the punishment was extremely severe (and rooted in incompetent Dalis’s personal animosity towards Harrick). We have seen so many sleazy figures in NCAA paying no price whatsoever for doing something so much worse. Oh well.
There has been enough water under the bridge at this point. Harrick was never perfect but he did bring us number 11 and that championship was won within rules and the program he established never embarrassed us the way we have seen figures like Calipari did to their programs.
I will always be grateful to Harrick. As for Howland I just hope he gets it back together. He will have to get it done in next 2 years.
My recollection is the same -
Dalis and Harrick were oil and water. My understanding is that Harrick was kind of a good ol boy type, who would tell off color jokes and did not fit Dalis’ image of a UCLA coach. I just know that he was a good recruiter and a player’s coach, who also knew the game. CBH is more my type, and the proper image for my school, but I also thought that Harrick got the shaft, particularly after bringing the program back to National prominence.
What the winning tournament teams have in common
I’ve not been able to keep up with the threads, and if this has been posted or discussed before, I apologize.
What I’ve been able to catch of the games, the winning teams have:
1. Played good D;
2. Made FT’s; and,
3. Limited TO’s.
For our entire season, those were our weaknesses.
Duh! you don’t get to dance if you can’t do those steps.
sjh
Teams that can shoot - win
Northern Iowa and Cornell show that a team that can shoot well from the outside can win. It also shows the great breadth of good basketball players that exist all over the country. Makes me wonder why we can’t get more of em.
Premature tournament flameouts
happen to every program, even the elite ones. The mark of a great program, and great coach, is sustained success, year after year, and breaking through once or twice a decade with a championship.
UNC, Duke, Kansas, Michigan St. and UConn have had that type of success and are elite programs. I would not put UCLA in that category given the body of work over the last decade.
I would gladly trade 2 or 3 premature flameouts for a championship.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
I think it's pretty cool
that Page and MoDrew are such outspoken Bruin fans. They’re just fighting back against that BSPN/mainstream media east coast bias.
"We should have a banner up there: the only team to make the tournament without a coach." -- Baron Davis, remembering his "coach" at UCLA
by inhowlandwetrust on Mar 22, 2010 9:05 AM PDT reply actions
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